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MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

(EARLY YEARS) 



"En nous faisanl naitre a I'epoque de la liberie naissante, le sort 
nous a places comme les enfants perdus de VaTmee qui doit combattre 
pour elle, et la /aire triompher ; c^est a nous de bien faire notre tdche 
et preparer ainsi le bonheur des generations suivantes." 

— Madame Roland. 

"Non, la patrie n'est pas un mot; c^est un etre auquel on a fait 

des sacrifices, a qui Von s^ attache chaque jour par les sollicitudes qu'il 

cause, qu'on a cr'ee par de grands efforts, qui s^eleve au milieu des 

inquietudes et qu'on aime autant par ce qu'il coUte que par ce qu'on 

en espereJ' ,, „ 

^ — Madame Roland. 




THE PORTRAIT OF MADAME ROLAND 
Supposed to be "Le Camee de Langlois" 



MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 



EARLY YEARS 



BY 
EVANGELINE WILBOUR BLASHFIELD 

AiriHOK or "portraits and backgrounds," "masques of CUPID," 
"ITALIAN cities" (WITH MR. BLASHIIELD), ETC. 



ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS AND VIEWS 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
1922 



'^^^t>^ 



Copyright, 1922, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Printed in the United States of America 



Published Februaiy, 1922 




MAR -/ 1922 



CLA654843 



CONTENTS 



PACK 



Introductory ix 

By Edwin Rowland Blashfield 

CHAPTER 

I. The Portrait of the Memoirs i 

II. Parentage and Childhood i6 

III. Austerity and Frivolity 30 

IV. Religious Doubts . . . 50 

V. First Suitors 75 

VI. Family and Social Relations 112 

VII. Bereavement and New Friends 133 

VIII. Roland de la Platiere 152 

IX. Courtship and Marriage 182 

X. DoMi Mansit — Eudora 206 

XI. From Amiens to Lyons 223 

XII. Le Clos, Villefranche, and Lyons 242 

XIII. Rumblings before the Storm 270 

XIV. "La Revolution Vint et Nous Enflamma" . . . 298 
XV. Bancal des Issarts 311 

Appendixes — 

I. The Portraits of Madame Roland .... 337 

II. Madam Roland's Style 348 

III. Madame Roland's Veracity 350 

IV. Character of the Assembly 369 

V. The Girondins 371 

VI. The Methods of the Mountain 378 

VII. The Salon of Madame Roland .381 

V 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The portrait of Madame Roland supposed to be "Le Camee 
de Langlois" Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

Gatien Phlipon, father of Madame Roland l8 

Pastel by Latour, in the Museum of Lyons 

The Bonneville engraving of Madame Roland 34 

House in which Madame Roland lived as a girl 50 

On the Quai de rHorloge and the Pont Neuf 

La Place Dauphine in 1608, showing the Roland house at the 

left S2 

From an old print 

Terminal bust called portrait of Madame Roland 80 

Sculptured by Chinard and now in the Edmond Aynard Col- 
lection at Lyons 

Marie Marguerite Bimont, mother of Madame Roland ... 88 
Pastel by Latour, in the Museum of Lyons 

J. M. Roland de la Platiere, inspector of manufactures at 

Lyons 154 

Engraved by Lemoine in 1779 

So-called physionotrace profile of Madame Roland .... 208 
From a colored engraving lately acquired by the Musee 
Carnavalet 

Madame Roland 224 

From a portrait drawing in the possession of her family 

L. A. G. Bosc 256 

Taken from the volume, Le Naturaliste Bosc, by Auguste Rey 

Jean Marie Roland de la Platiere, Minister of the Interior . 268 
From a portrait drawn and engraved by Nicolas Colbert 
vii 



viii ILLUSTRATIONS 

FAQNC PAGE 

Madame Roland 272 

From a drawing by Danloux, in the National Library of Paris 
(Faugere Legacy) 

Portrait of Roland 280 

Drawn by Gabriel in 1792 

Statue of Madame Roland 302 

From the study for the statue of Madame Roland which is 
now in a niche on the southern side of the exterior of the 
Hotel de Ville in Paris 

Portrait of Brissot 308 



INTRODUCTORY 

If Mrs. Blashfield had lived she would have com- 
pleted her study of Madame Roland by the addition 
of another volume. She left a large quantity of notes 
but they are mainly memoranda and useless without 
her own interpretation and elaboration. Among them 
are the records of hundreds of facts with their dates, 
suggestions, juxtapositions, paradoxes, confrontations, 
rough sketches of programme, followed by more elabo- 
rated sketches. But even these last are still rough- 
hewn stones which need the thought with which she 
cemented her materials as she built her spaciously 
planned edifice. With a few exceptions, therefore, 
reproduced as Appendixes, it has been necessary to 
leave her text unsupplemented and as she left it. She 
had however carefully revised what she finished, and 
the fragment which technically this must be called 
stands as she would have had it. It also has a unity 
of its own, since it completes the early history of its 
heroine and leaves her on the threshold of her public 
career. 

As was to be expected, moreover, the public career 
of one of the most eminent of the women who have 
had one inevitably influences the account of her youth 
by any one who has made her maturity the subject 
of prolonged and elaborate study. The result of such 
study was to make of Mrs. Blashfield, at first no 
doubt somewhat romantically attached to so romantic 



X INTRODUCTORY 

a figure as the Egeria of the Gironde, a convinced 
partisan. She remained, however, a singularly open- 
minded, as well as, it may be added, an extremely 
well-armed one. She warmed to the defense of her 
heroine and states the case for her with the genuine 
polemic zest that not only disdains to suppress but 
dehghts to confute hostile criticism. She was quite 
ready to take up instances of underestimation or flip- 
pant or unjust censure of Madame Roland, It has 
been possible to save from her notes and cite in her 
own words one or two such instances, but in many, 
many cases in her talks with me she has referred to 
misinterpretations or lack of appreciation which she 
meant to touch upon but in relation to which she has 
set nothing down on paper. 

That she would have more elaborately controverted 
the severities of M. Aulard and others is certain. 
Many of the pages in her copies of Aulard's books 
are marked for reference almost from corner to corner. 
But criticism of Madame Roland is mainly, of course, 
concerned with her conduct and mental attitude in 
relation to events an account of which could find its 
place only in that second volume which the author 
was destined not to write. Her discussion of such 
criticism being thus in the main necessarily deferred 
is regrettably, and would have seemed to her griev- 
ously, incomplete. On the other hand, in Appendix V 
there is a hint of her sympathy with Aulard's and 
Louvet's strictures upon the oratory of the Girondins, 
and more than a hint that she should devote much 
attention to that detail of her subject. Dauban she 
followed attentively through many volumes, but among 



INTRODUCTORY xi 

writers upon her heroine, perhaps the attitude of Vatel 
is most nearly her own. And her own, after all, re- 
lied chiefly on an instinctive interpretation and argued 
analysis of the ultimate sources of her biography, viz., 
the Lettres and especially the Memoires de Madame 
Roland, with their various subdivisions of Memoires 
Particuliers, Portraits et Anecdotes, Notices Histo- 
riques, etc., of which she used many different edi- 
tions. 

The congeniaHty of her subject perhaps sharpened 
the curiosity and the conscientiousness with which 
she studied it on all sides, and investigated all sources 
of information that bore upon it. To most of the ma- 
terial vestiges, the backgrounds of plains and hills of 
brick and mortar which framed Madame Roland's 
life, Mrs. Blashfield paid personal visits. We went 
together to Amiens, Lyons, Villefranche, drove over 
the hills of the Beaujolais to the Clos de la Platiere, 
and in the forest of Montmorenci visited Sainte Rade- 
gonde where Madame Roland's manuscript for a time 
lay hidden. We followed her Girondist friends south- 
west, to that strange town, fascinating at once through 
its history and its picturesqueness. Saint Emilion, 
with its rock-cut church and houses, its mediaeval 
ramparts, its climbing, crooked streets. We looked 
down the famous dry well, went through the house 
where in the attics the men who had roused Paris 
and the provinces lay cramped and suffocated or frozen, 
fugitive victims of the license which was stifling the 
lately found liberty. 

In Paris itself the quarters in which the comings 
and goings of both Manon Phlipon and Madame Ro- 



xii INTRODUCTORY 

land de la Platiere were most frequent have changed 
greatly, have been opened up and are dotted with 
breathing spaces. Yet much remains of the revolu- 
tionary Paris and upon the very edge of the left bank 
of the Seine, the greatest breathing space of all, still 
stands the house that sheltered Manon's girlhood — a 
really handsome object full of style and character, 
built of the cream-colored stone which aids in making 
Paris so beautiful and which lends itself so delight- 
fully to the caress of time. Many years ago when we 
went to Vasse, on the Quai Malaquais, for a photo- 
graph of it he admitted that in his great collection 
not one reproduction of the house existed save in 
general views. 

His photographer went with us and made several 
negatives from different angles, one of which is used 
in this volume. Since then photographic reproductions 
have been published more than once, but at that time 
there were few, if any. In Lyons, negatives of the 
pastel portraits of the father and mother of Madame 
Roland were also made expressly for Mrs. Blashfield, 
and appear in this book. 

An effort has been made throughout the volume to 
select as illustrations such portraits as the author would 
have chosen from the large number of prints existing 
at the Musee Carnavalet, the BibHotheque Nationale, 
and elsewhere. The "Heinsius portrait" (so-called) in 
the Museum of Versailles, has been left out of the Hst 
partly because it has been so frequently published, 
partly because of Mrs. Blashfield's disUke of its com- 
monness. Descendants of Madame Roland have pro- 
tested against its attribution and Monsieur Pierre de 



INTRODUCTORY xiii 

Nolhac smilingly promised Mrs. Blashfield that in the 
forthcoming catalogue of the gallery, a question-mark 
should follow the title of the portrait. The famous 
**Buzot medallion" and the chalk drawing from the 
Chateau de la Rosiere (from which David d'Angers's 
profile in relief was evidently made) have been in- 
cluded on account of their importance and almost un- 
doubted authenticity. 

A special negative was made for the author from 
the rather recently acquired "Danloux portrait," in 
the Bibliotheque Nationale. As for the reproduction 
of the "physionotrace profile" its ugUness and hard- 
ness make it difficult to say whether Mrs. Blashfield 
would have admitted it to her book. In Paris, in the 
summer of 1921, the Musee Carnavalet had only a 
short time before received a copy of this rare print, 
which M. Boucher, the curator, kindly allowed me to 
photograph. The process of the physionotrace was 
popular in the years which immediately preceded and 
followed the birth of the nineteenth century, but it 
has been so forgotten that one of the leading photog- 
raphers of Paris questioned me with interest as to the 
little I had learned concerning it. The result obtain- 
able from it, as in the case of a silhouette made from 
an omhre portee is only nominally correct and would 
depend in part on the skill, light-handedness, and art- 
knowledge of the executant. It becomes easy unduly 
to emphasize the outlines, and in the case of the print 
at the Carnavalet the color which has been added to 
it tends to make the photograph harder and coarser. 

Madame Roland's fame easily accounts for the num- 
ber of prints or reliefs referring to her; nearly all are 



xiv INTRODUCTORY 

in profile and have among them pretty pieces of en- 
graving (those of Dien, Gaucher, etc.)- Some of these 
were perhaps drawn from nature, most of them were 
evidentl}'^ made one from another with occasional 
variations as to hair or head-dress. Several busts 
have been attributed as portraits but no mention exists 
of any of them in Madame Roland's writings. We 
went to Nevers to see the bust, brought to notice there 
by M. Louis Gonse. In the poor light of the over- 
full museum it was difficult to see it well; it seems 
too sharp-featured and hard to be convincing, and 
one notes that the attribution has been removed from 
the later printed reproductions of it. In the interest- 
ing bust by Morin published on page 407 of La Revo- 
lution Fran^aise, from the series of historical albums 
by M. Armand Dayot, Inspecteur General des Beaux 
Arts, the piquant upturned corner of the mouth, so 
typical of most of the portraits, is missing and the nose 
appears sharp, rather than broad at the end as Ma- 
dame Roland describes it. The smiHng mouth reap- 
pears in the handsome Pajou bust at Bagatelle lent 
from the collection of M. Lucien Kraemer, yet it is not 
wholly easy to accept it as a portrait. The terminal 
bust portrait in the Aynard collection at Lyons by 
Chinard is charming. Chinard was a friend of the 
Rolands, and deeply indebted to madame for her in- 
tervention in relation to his imprisonment for political 
reasons by the Pope, but the lovely head seems to be 
almost that of a little girl. 

The pretty curly-haired child sold on postal cards 
at the Carnavalet seems to me in its style too late to 
be convincing, but M. Boucher told me that certain 



INTRODUCTORY xv 

experts saw reasons for accepting it. The "Madame 
Roland seated on a sofa and with a little dog," shown 
in a retrospective exposition at Paris some years ago 
and chronicled in Les ArtSy I have not seen and it 
was not forthcoming as a reproduction after diligent 
search. As for the drawing in the Bibliotheque made 
by an unskilful hand and inscribed as "J. M. P. Ro- 
land, dessine a la conciergerie," it shows an exaggera- 
tion of the typical upturned mouth-corner and rather 
protuberant eyes with arched brows, but does not 
bear out the words of her fellow prisoners, Beugnot 
and others, as to her wearing the hair always loosely 
floating upon her shoulders. On the whole, though 
the acknowledged magic of her voice and constant 
play of expression are absent, we can from the written 
descriptions and the prints make up for ourselves a 
fair composite suggestion of the features of the most 
famous woman and one of the most famous figures 
of a tremendous drama. 

Edwin Howland Blashfield. 

January i, 1922. 



CHAPTER I 
THE PORTRAIT OF THE MEMOIRS 

To write anew of one who has been so celebrated 
not only by her contemporaries but by their successors 
seems perhaps superfluous. She who has received the 
civic crown from Quinet, Michelet, Louis Blanc, and 
Carlyle, whose house bears a commemorative tablet, 
whose statue stands on the fa9ade of the town hall of 
Paris, may be considered so securely established in 
her niche in history that further criticism or comment 
is redundant. 

Time, however, has its revelations as well as its 
revenges. Following in the footsteps of the great har- 
vesters an aftermath may be gleaned. More than a 
century ago Louvet published the Appeal to Impartial 
Posterity of the Citoyenne Roland. Forty years have 
passed since Dauban and Faugere told the secret which 
had been so piously preserved by Madame Roland's 
family and friends. These forty years have been ex- 
tremely prolific in the discovery of historical data 
relating to the French Revolution. There have been 
changes in political opinion; families have died out, 
and consequently certain susceptibilities are no longer 
to be considered; private papers by gift or sale have 
become public property; and domestic records have 
attained the dignity of historical documents. Jour- 
nals, letters, and household chronicles, as well as secret 
archives, spies' reports, and diplomats' despatches are 



2 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

now open to the curious. To-day no epoch can be 
studied more closely than that which Matthew Arnold 
discriminatingly termed the most animating in his- 
tory. 

It was indeed not only the most animating but a 
unique moment in the evolution of mankind, in which 
nothing happened as it had ever happened before. 
Only the unexpected occurred, the amazing became 
the normal, and the impossible was the order of the 
day. A year counted as a lustrum, so crowded was it 
with events. Speculation was instantly translated 
into action. Theory was precipitated into practice. 
The written word quickened into the spoken word, 
and the spoken word into the immediate deed. Life 
moved at a quickstep. An episode grew into a drama, 
and a drama into a tragedy; protagonist and chorus 
shifted roles with bewildering celerity; at a moment's 
notice the "super" of a first became the star of a second 
act. The butcher of yesterday played the victim of 
to-day. Princesses scrubbed floors, adventuresses 
trafficked in heads and fortunes, and great ladies 
trudged as camp-followers behind officers in wadded 
petticoats. Infantry captured fleets, and victory 
marched in the ranks of famished tatterdemalions. 

On the swift current of events we are swept from 
surprise to mystery, from mystery to enigma, drawn 
on by the lure of the unforeseen. Despite Taine's 
analyses of the Revolution's origins, notwithstanding 
Sorel's lucid and philosophical explanations of its im- 
mediate and remote causes, of its inevitability, in fine, 
and Jaures's insistence on its economic aspects, the 
great movement, eluding classification and arrange- 



THE PORTRAIT OF THE MEMOIRS 3 

ment, retains the fascination of the impenetrable. 
And the Revolution is not ended. It is not a past issue. 
We have not solved all its problems or answered its 
questions. The rights of man are still to define, the 
social contract is yet to be made. The sphinx of the 
Revolution crouches in our path. 

To-day its economic history is emerging through 
the publication of documents from municipal registers 
and provincial archives.* A new continent of special 
knowledge is open to the explorer, of measureless value 
to the historian of democracy. The Revolution's hoard 
of precious material for savant and student is inex- 
haustible. As the soil of Egypt after centuries of ex- 
cavation still yields riches to the treasure-seeker, each 
season welcomes the publication of some work based 
on documents from recently discovered stores. 

Modern research, though it has not radically changed 
our estimates of the prominent figures of the Revolu- 
tion, or invalidated the judgment of its famous his- 
torians, has often modified them. Naturally enough 
the importance of recent discoveries has been magnified 
owing to the present tendency to reverse the decrees 
of the past, to smirch quondam saints, and to bleach 
ci-devant sinners. But, though the minute investiga- 
tion of modern scholarship has resulted in no special 
transformation of opinion, it has profoundly altered 
the general attitude of mind towards all historical work, 
and has supplied a new modus and a new standard to 
the historian. A habit of cautious verification, un- 
hesitating rejection of statements unsupported by 

* Collection des documents inedits sur Vhistoire iconomique de la revolu' 
tion fran^aise. 



4 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

documentary evidence, a disposition to lean more 
confidingly on a single fact than on a general belief, 
a growing distrust of the dramatic presentation of 
events, are gradually changing what was once litera- 
ture into science. 

Gradually only, however. The method is young. 
The destructive instinct of extreme youth is not en- 
tirely outgrown. The denials are less temperately 
phrased than the assertions. The significance of a 
small recent discovery is rated above that of the more 
important but familiar fact. The present levelling 
tendency is not sufficiently curbed. Style and elo- 
quence are regarded with suspicion, as though they 
were necessarily misleading. But these are the de- 
fects of qualities which further development will cor- 
rect. 

The scientific method has not yet discrowned the 
queen of the Gironde. The most distinguished living 
historian of the Revolution, M. Aulard, still considers 
her the Egeria of her political party, or rather a golden- 
voiced siren defied and punished by sage Ulysses-Dan- 
ton, who lured the wise and eloquent, as well as the 
young and enthusiastic, to shipwreck on the rocks of 
an impossible Utopia. 

To Morse Stephens Madame Roland is the am- 
bitious leader of a salon of the Opposition. To Mr. 
Belloc "Roland's wife is the one character which 
could have prevented Danton's ascendancy, and have 
met his ugly strength by a force as determined and 
more refined." Mr. Austin Dobson, who occasionally 
takes swallow-like dips into the waters of history, 
considers Madame Roland as **man by the head and 



THE PORTRAIT OF THE MEMOIRS 5 

woman by the heart," though he prefers Madame 
de Lamballe, as is natural to a poet who confesses 
himself *'not at ease with tragic and majestic figures," 
and in their presence longs "for the over-sexed woman 
of Rivarol." M. Perroud, the latest editor of the 
Roland memoirs and letters, refrains entirely from 
personal judgments and contents himself with ex- 
haustive annotation and careful emendation of his 
author's text. His researches have furnished the most 
valuable additions to our knowledge of Madame Roland 
since Dauban's work appeared in 1867. No writer 
unites more genuine enthusiasm for his subject with a 
more detached attitude towards it, and modern ob- 
jectivity finds no worthier expositor. Yet the impos- 
ing figure of the Girondin lady remains heroic in his 
documented pages. 

The popular M. Lenotre, who illustrates, pushed to 
its remotest limit, another modern tendency — devout 
contemplation of detail — has applied his microscope 
to Madame Roland, or rather to her furniture and her 
old clothes. To a list of the chairs and curtains in 
her apartment of the Rue de la Harpe, and of the 
worn garments left in the wardrobe when she was 
carried off to prison, he appends an appreciation of 
the owner's character and aims. This sketch, though 
scarcely more valuable than the discarded gowns it 
minutely describes, and curiously hostile in tone, does 
not deny to its subject the power and charm that im- 
pressed every one of her contemporaries who came 
within the magic circle of her influence. Courage, 
eloquence, elevated enthusiasm are accorded to her 
even by those who, through class prejudice or a kind 



6 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

of belated snobbishness, are inclined to judge harshly 
"the ambitious bourgeoise," the commoner who aspired 
to play the aristocrat. 

Indeed, it almost seems as if the attraction that 
swayed the minds of men in her own day had en- 
dured, and that every writer who came near this puis- 
sant personality submitted to the spell of her grace, 
or the force of her spirit. Royalist, Montagnard, Ter- 
rorist, Reactionary, as divided in opinion among them- 
selves as they are from the Girondin leaders, subscribe 
grudgingly or cordially to the dictum of Antonelle, 
her political opponent: "(9 Roland, la plus seduisante 
des femmeSy le plus grand des homines^ 

The ^^ grand homme" is raised on a pedestal to be 
observed and judged by every one; the seduisante 
femme is less known. All the world has seen the palms 
laid at the feet of the heroine, few have noted the 
tender tributes of friends and comrades to the charm- 
ing woman. It is to the more intimate knowledge of 
her character rather than of her acts or her influence 
that the research of the last few years has contributed. 
M. Join-Lambert's publication of the correspondence 
of M. and Mme. Roland before their marriage, 
M. Perroud's discovery of the souvenirs of Madame 
Sophie Grandchamp, and his monumental editions of 
Madame Roland's letters are the most important of 
several publications that form a valuable commentary 
on her own Memoirs. 

As yet, however, in spite of new matter, Madame 
Roland remains her own best biographer, and any 
study of her Hfe and work, or of the national drama 
she helped to make will always return again and again 



THE PORTRAIT OF THE MEMOIRS 7 

to her Memoirs. Fresh material may supplement, it 
cannot supersede them. She speaks better for herself 
than any one can speak for her. She tried to plead 
her own cause before the Revolutionary Tribunal. 
She longed to justify her husband, to exonerate her 
friends. She was silenced, as were Vergniaud and all 
the golden tongues of her eloquent party, but, never 
losing faith in human justice, she spent the last months 
of her life in writing an appeal to a more august trib- 
unal — "the judgment," in her own words, "of Impar- 
tial Posterity." 

Memoirs were never composed under greater stress. 
They were written by stealth, in solitary confinement, 
under the eyes of a watchful guard, in a tiny, stifling 
cell, with the shadow of the guillotine falling across 
their pages. They cover quartos of coarse gray paper 
supplied by the jailer for the prisoners' correspondence. 
The sheets are closely written, for space was valuable 
as well as time, in an elegant, clear hand with hardly 
an erasure or a correction, though some of the lines 
are blotted with tear-stains. A biography of this manu- 
script would read like a romance of adventure. It was 
smuggled out of prison under a woman's neckerchief, 
dropped furtively into the court from a barred win- 
dow, and picked up by a devoted friend literally at 
the risk of his head. It was hidden for months in a 
deserted quarry, in the cleft of a rock in the forest of 
Montmorency, and in the hermitage of Sainte Rade- 
gonde. They carried death in their folds like the subtly 
poisoned billets of the Renaissance, those boldly written 
pages. Some of them were burned in a panic of fear 
after the arrest of the friend to whom they were con- 



8 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

fided, and some of them were concealed within a few 
feet of the formidable Committee of Public Safety. 
When the scattered leaves were finally collected and 
published it was the house friends of Madame Roland, 
Bosc and Louvet, who gave them to the world. 

We owe the Memoirs of Madame Roland to her 
friends — it was their courage and devotion that pre- 
served and transmitted her Appeal; Champagneux, 
Bosc, Mentelle, Helena Williams, Sophie Grandchamp 
each took up the perilous task as suspicion or arrest 
fell upon one after another of the little group. The 
contemporaries of Madame Roland raised temples to 
friendship; the preservation of her papers is not one 
of the least of these monuments. 

The eighteenth century — analytical, self-conscious, 
curious of the things of the mind, deeply interested 
in defining the rights and the relations of the individual 
to the general scheme of existence — sought expression 
in memoirs. No age is as rich in the personal record 
of events and emotions. As art had turned to genre 
and portraiture, deserting Paradise and Olympus, 
literature, responding even more sensitively to the 
demands of new-born realism, was occupied with ac- 
tualities. The seventeenth century had busied itself 
with the study of divinity and the soul of man, the 
eighteenth century sought light in the study of hu- 
manity and the mind of man. BufFon succeeded to 
Fenelon, Rousseau's Confessions to the Pensees of 
Pascal; as spiritual guide the Enchiridion of Epictetus 
replaced the Philothee of Saint Francis de Sales, and 
while the Lives of Plutarch were diligently read, the 
dust gathered on the Lives of the Saints. 



THE PORTRAIT OF THE MEMOIRS 9 

If the study of man in general was interesting, the 
contemplation of the individual man was engrossing. 
That intimate homo that each one of us knows, or fancies 
he knows, best, became the object of earnest contem- 
plation and brilliant exposition, given the habit of 
writing and the perfected instrument of expression 
that the French language had become in the eighteenth 
century. To inventory one's own person, to take stock 
of one's capacities, to plumb the depths of the heart, 
to sound the shallows of the mind, to balance faults 
and weaknesses against virtues and excellences, to 
cast this self-knowledge in a pretty mould of exact 
terms and deftly turned, epigrammatic phrases, was 
an intellectual game constantly played in a society 
that, to the natural absence of reserve of the Latin, 
united a social instinct so highly developed that ret- 
icence was as irksome to it as soHtude. Thus the 
Portrait, a delicately worded, penetratingly observed 
study in analysis, was a favorite diversion and a lit- 
erary exercise in polite circles, and memoirs are but 
a further development of the full-length portrait with 
the addition of background and minor figures. 

Memoirs are valuable as revelations of character, 
as pictures of society, as contemporary records of events, 
and as expressions of the general spirit of their epoch. 
iEsthetic interest is superadded when they are written 
with style and grace. They gain in importance as 
the character of the author is remarkable, as the so- 
ciety depicted is unusual, as the events described are 
noteworthy. If a fine sense of form governs the ar- 
rangement of material they become belles lettres as well 
as documents. Weighed by any of these standards of 



lo MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

value the Memoirs of Madame Roland are of capital 
importance, as precious to the psychologist as to the 
historian of manners, or events, or letters. No docu- 
ment affords a more intimate view of the Revolution, 
a more animated picture of the life of the bourgeoisie, 
or a more searching study of a unique personality — a 
personality of whom a contemporary, Lemontey, wrote: 
" ce n'etait pas seulement le caractere le plus j on, mais 
encore le plus vrai de notre revolution.*^ 

The carefully finished portrait of the author is only 
one of a series that covers the ample canvas of the 
Memoirs — portraits that are occasionally painted in 
lurid or dark colors, but how keen is the perception, 
how trenchant the characterization ! The men who 
made and unmade the Revolution have sat uncon- 
sciously for the clear-eyed artist. Dumouriez, Ver- 
gniaud, Condorcet, Danton, Marat, Robespierre, are 
sketched from life. To turn the leaves of the Portraits 
et Anecdotes is like passing from room to room, from 
case to case, of the Musee Carnavalet, though no 
piously guarded relics, no vestiges of the past care- 
fully arranged under glass, can compare as a means of 
evoking it with the narrative of an eye-witness. The 
force, the fire, the irresistible movement of the Revo- 
lution lives again in Madame Roland's pages. 

Memoirs written during the Terror are rare, those 
of Meillan, Brissot, Barbaroux, Buzot, Petion, Louvet, 
and Dumouriez make but a short list, and lack the 
color and impetus, as well as the literary flavor, of those 
of Madame Roland. Many of the so-called Revolu- 
tionary memoirs were composed after Thermidor and 
during the Empire. Lapses of memory, changes of 



THE PORTRAIT OF THE MEMOIRS ii 

political opinion, the unpopularity of republican ideas, 
and the natural conservatism of age biassed the views 
and affected the veracity of their authors, so that their 
souvenirs are less trustworthy as well as less attractive 
than those hastily penned in the face of events. 

There is a peculiar charm in history that has been 
lived by the historian, and there is an intimate attrac- 
tion in following the evolution of the historian's mind 
and character under the influence of the events re- 
corded. When Madame Roland was first imprisoned 
hope was strong in her; her friends were free, raising 
the Provinces, gathering an army that she hoped to 
see enter Paris, re-establishing the rule of law and the 
rights of all Frenchmen against the despotism of a 
minority. Through June and July, sustained by letters 
from Buzot and by visits from her friends, she spent 
many hours in writing an apologia for her husband's 
policy as minister of the interior and an explanation 
of her share in his work. In August the news of the 
defeat of Wimpfen's army and the flight of the Girondin 
leaders bereft her of all hope. Her friends were "jmj- 
pects.^' Champagneux was arrested, and the greater 
part of the work she had confided to him was burned 
in a panic of terror. Bosc had resigned his position 
and could see her only rarely. Grandpre, watched 
and hounded, counted his visits. Her solitude was 
almost unbroken. She was alone with her disillusions 
and her sorrows, her lost dreams of a free and happy 
republican France, her dead faith in the noble aspira- 
tions and innate goodness of the people. Anguish 
far more intolerable even than the loss of belief in 
lofty ideals pressed on her heart — the thought of 



12 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

her lover, a fugitive and an outlaw in hourly peril of 
his life. 

Madame Roland since her convent days had found 
her spiritual guide under the Porch, but stoicism, 
though it fortifies the mind, cannot steel the heart, 
and the lonely woman, wounded in all her affections, 
sought asylum from despair, not in the Gospels nor 
in the Discourses, but in the evocation of her own 
youth. She stopped her ears against the clamor of 
her unhappy time, and listened to the voice of mem- 
ory. As she listened the blood-stained walls of her 
fetid prison vanished and she was in the dewy for- 
est of Meudon gathering the first violets of the year, 
or walking in the Jardin du Roi between the glow- 
ing flowerbeds in a gay holiday throng, or in her own 
tiny room overlooking the Seine, among her books — 
young again, free from the chains of duty and the 
tyranny of circumstance. 

In the Memoires Particuliers present ills are ig- 
nored and public life almost forgotten, save only when 
the firmly woven thread of the narrative is broken by 
a wail of grief, or a cry of indignation at some new 
crime against liberty and justice. Once the paper is 
abruptly cut off, "for no one is sure of living twenty- 
four hours." 

Were it not for these crosses that mark the flowery 
path of the narrative of sunny early years it would 
be difficult to realize that it was the work of one about 
to die. The envoys of the Mountain howl "Mort d la 
fefnme Roland" under her windows, the hawkers of 
the Pere Duchesne shout their obscene calumnies with- 
in her hearing: insult and peril only speed her pen. 



THE PORTRAIT OF THE MEMOIRS 13 

and sweeten and strengthen the memory of her youth. 
And this record of youthful days has youth's own spon- 
taneous and irresistible charm. Here are no echoes 
of antiquity, no Roman matron's attitude; for the 
moment Plutarch is forgotten and Jean Jacques re- 
membered. The citoyenne, the austere republican, 
has dropped the stylus, and Manon Phlipon has taken 
up the facile quill of her countrywomen that in her 
hand becomes a wizard's rod calling up a vanished 
world. Gayety, tenderness, irony, frolic mirth, a frank 
abandonment to the young delight of being alive; an 
unusual capacity for realizing past moods of thought 
and phases of feeling, concise yet vivid bits of descrip- 
tion, penetrating appreciations of character, a style 
clear and sparkling as youthful eyes that have known 
neither tears nor vigils; a sureness of touch and light- 
ness of hand that, in spite of a didactic tone (common 
to most of the late eighteenth-century memoirs), al- 
ways saves the every-day from becoming the common- 
place; by such means is the narrative of the retired, 
uneventful life of a little Parisian bourgeoise endued 
with significance and distinction. 

How true is her picture } Did she add to the de- 
lineation of the girl that she had been, the portrait 
of the woman she desired to be, or the woman she 
had become ? Did not the amplitude of a matured 
style, the reflections of a riper experience enrich the 
records of her obscure youth ? Undoubtedly. In 
persons gifted with an abundant inner Hfe the imagina- 
tion is such a formative factor, such a reality in fine, 
that it is impossible sharply to divide it from the other 
reality of fact. There is also in every highly difFerenti- 



14 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

ated human creature an ego that observes and criticises, 
as well as an ego that feels and acts. This dualism of 
the personality inevitably affects the integrity of a 
retrospective narrative by unconsciously imparting to 
the primitive ego the larger views and saner judg- 
ments of a further stage of mental evolution. Nor 
can an autobiographer escape a tendency to mould 
his substance into a fixed form. An author generally 
possesses an ideal of art even when his life is void of 
one. Every one has his conventions even when re- 
volting against convention. To be comprehensible we 
are forced to employ accepted forms; and this obliga- 
tory formality dominates the matter it fashions. 

With these reservations Madame Roland's account 
of her life may be taken with less than the proverbial 
grain of salt. When she wrote — "The daughter of 
an artist, born in an obscure station but of respectable 
parents, I spent my youth in the bosom of the fine 
arts, nourished by the delights of study, ignorant of 
all superiority but that of merit, of all greatness but 
that of virtue" — Dauban observes that she sees her 
childhood as a mirage. But while the style is romantic 
the statements are indisputable. She did spend her 
childhood in the studio of her father, a master engraver 
on metal (graveur de Monsieur le comte d'Artois was 
his official title), an artist, as he was called in an age 
that defined the word, "Vouvrier qui travaille avec 
grand art et avec facilite.*^ There was no chasm then 
between the industrial and the fine arts. The engraver 
who decorated snuff-boxes and watch-cases was pre- 
pared for his task by an apprenticeship in drawing 
from the antique and in study of the best models. 



THE PORTRAIT OF THE MEMOIRS 15 

Pretty things were not made by the gross then, and 
each one, if not a separate invention of the maker, 
was the product of patient, often of enthusiastic, ef- 
fort, and sometimes was a masterpiece executed under 
high pressure of fervor and deHght. With less knowl- 
edge, perhaps there was more feeling than we possess, 
— ^'Uouvrier nait au XVI IT siecle et la machine au 

xirr 

In her father's ateHer the small Manon Phlipon 
drew from the antique and learned to handle the burin. 
She had half a dozen masters for dancing, singing, 
the guitar, the clavecin^ the violin. She did pass her 
youth in study, reading voraciously and indiscrimi- 
nately, but usually taking notes and analyzing her 
reading. If she devoured Candide to-day, to-morrow 
found her working out algebraic formulae, or filling a 
letter to Sophie with an abstract of Leibnitz's theory 
of sensations. 

If her girlhood was saddened by a knowledge of 
her father's dissipation and her mother's anxieties, 
if in her own home she saw how helpless is goodness 
to command happiness, such experience does not dis- 
prove her words — indeed, the assertion that she was 
"ignorant of all superiority but that of merit" is a 
frank admission of the humbleness of her position. 
Even the least and poorest of nobles was hampered 
by a thousand different superiorities and greatnesses 
in the social hierarchy from which the petite bourgeoisie 
was happily free. 



CHAPTER II 
PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD 

One curious characteristic of these Memoirs, written 
literally in a race with death, is their air of leisure. 
The writer begins her story with her own birth and 
with the portraits of her parents. M. and Mme. 
Phlipon were painted also by La Tour, and it is 
interesting to note how these pastels, now in the 
museum at Lyons, illustrate the pen sketches by their 
daughter. Gatien Phlipon, in his best coat and lace 
cravat, in spite of his fine eyes and artist's mouth, is 
a little vulgar-looking — less so, however, than the por- 
traits of the dukes of Choiseul and Lauzun. 

M. Phlipon was "strong and healthy, active and 
vain." ** Without learning he had that degree of taste 
and knowledge, which the fine arts give superficially, 
in whatever branch they are practised." "He could 
not be said to be a virtuous man, but he had a great 
deal of what is called honor. He would have no ob- 
jection to receiving more than it was worth for a thing, 
but he would have killed himself rather than not pay 
the price of what he had purchased," Thus Madame 
Roland with much detachment, and La Tour seems 
to confirm her judgment. 

M. Phlipon's position was financially and socially 
an agreeable one. Though he kept a shop where he 
sold his own and his pupils' work, and occasionally 
dealt in jewels on commission, he was enough of an 

i6 



PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD 17 

artist in sentiment and knowledge to consort with 
more gifted confreres. His family and that of his 
wife, though plebeian, were in no sense peuple. His 
forebears had always owned their own shops and been 
their own masters. His father, Gatien Phlipon, was 
a wine-merchant. His mother, Marie Genevieve Ro- 
tisset, who had relations among la grande bourgeoisie, 
opposed her sister's marriage to the well-to-do intendant 
of a fermier general as a derogation from the family 
dignity. M. Phlipon himself married a dowerless girl, 
Marie Marguerite Bimont, the daughter of a mercer, 
who became the mother of Madame Roland on March 
18, 1754. 

Madame Roland's ancestry was made the subject 
of a careful study based on public documents, by M. 
Jal in the Dictionnaire critique de biographic et d'his- 
toire, article "Roland." It is therefore surprising that 
M. Lenotre in his Salon de Madame Roland (Paris 
Revolutionnaire, p. 172, ed. 1906) should have com- 
menced his sketch by the utterly unfounded state- 
ments that Madame Roland's grandfather Rotisset was 
the head cook of the Marquis de Crequy, that he mar- 
ried the chambermaid of the marquise, and that their 
daughter, Fanchon Rotisset, became the wife of Gatien 
Phlipon and the mother of his illustrious daughter. 

M. Lenotre does not give his authority for these 
misstatements. It is not far to seek, however. The 
Crequys' apocryphal cook and chambermaid are only 
two of the fictitious characters invented by the pam- 
phleteer Causen de Courchamps in his spurious Sou- 
venirs de la Marquise de Crequy (VII, p. 192, ed. of 
1840). It was Causen's fabrications of this kind that 



i8 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

betrayed the counterfeit character of these cleverly 
forged memoirs. Though they have recently been 
abbreviated, translated into English, and presented 
to the American public as a genuine eighteenth-cen- 
tury production, they were discredited shortly after 
their appearance in 1840. 

M. Lenotre's repetition of Causen's fiction is the 
more incomprehensible because M. Lenotre acknowl- 
edges his indebtedness to M. Perroud for all the ma- 
terial of his Mort de Roland. Now M. Perroud pub- 
lished (in his Lettres de Madame Roland, 1902) an 
abstract of M. Jal's genealogical study of the Rolands, 
and a correction of M. Lenotre's careless repetition 
of Causen's invention. A mere glance at these notes 
would have prevented M. Lenotre from prematurely 
despising Madame Roland as the upstart offspring 
of a couple of servants, and viewing her career with 
consequent severity. A sufficient acquaintance with 
the documents in the case to prove that Manon's grand- 
parents were well-to-do bourgeois connected with la 
haute finance would not only have mitigated the as- 
perity of M. Lenotre's judgment, but would have im- 
posed fewer reserves on our future enjoyment of his 
entertaining glimpses of history. 

Madame PhHpon's portrait forms a sharp contrast 
to that of her rather positive, blunt-featured husband; 
in her face there is no lack of delicate edge, of a certain 
pensiveness refining its evident amiability; she also 
is in gala dress, and wears her furs and laces with fine 
unconsciousness. She is a thoughtful and dignified 
person quite worthy of a place among La Tour's fine 
ladies. Of the deep love and veneration she inspired 




GATIEN PHLIPOX— FATHER OF MADAME ROLAND 
Pastel by Latour in the Museum of Lyons 



PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD 19 

in her discriminating daughter the Memoirs bear con- 
stant witness. It was to this mother of "the heavenly 
mind and the charming face" that Madame Roland 
not only owed the sense of duty which proved a sanc- 
tuary to her ardent temperament, but a youth exempt 
from those household cares that devour time and 
strength. A large leisure for study, a serene and cheer- 
ful home life, which soothed the nerves and modified 
an excess of sensibility, were the gifts of this wise parent 
to a highly strung, precocious child. And the child 
of the bourgeoise was fortunate when her mother was 
judicious as well as tender, for mother and daughter 
were literally inseparable in the families of the Third 
Estate, and though the little Manon Phlipon, born 
before Rousseau's gospel had literally laid the baby 
on its mother's breast, was put out to nurse in the 
country, she passed her girlhood, with the exception 
of a year in a convent, under the maternal wing. The 
care of her daughter was the occupation and the diver- 
sion of the austerely bred bourgeoise; to this one little 
subject of her kingdom Madame Phlipon relaxed the 
discipline that often narrowed and alienated filial ten- 
derness by imposing on it a specific character that 
distinguished it from the other free and natural affec- 
tions, but this amiable mamma's frown or the sub- 
stitution of "Mademoiselle" for " ma filler" wsls more 
effective than M. Phlipon's birch rod. Discipline of 
a more spiritual sort Maman Phlipon was not chary 
of, and her daughter's education was a practical 
preparation for the duties of life as well as its op- 
portunities. The training of heart and mind began 
when the little Manon was sent home to Paris (1756) 



20 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

from her nurse's farm near Arpajon, where she had 
spent the first two years of her life. She was a rosy 
peasant baby, with the manners of a rustic but docile 
and affectionate; extremely obstinate when neither 
her reason nor her feelings were appealed to, and al- 
ready inclined to resist what appeared to her the dic- 
tates of caprice or the arbitrary exercise of authority. 
The child's education was a compromise between that 
of a grande bourgeoisey like Madame de Pompadour, 
and that of a housewife of the Third Estate, for the 
petite bourgeoise was a kind of social mermaid; of the 
people through her position, of the aristocracy through 
her accomplishments. Household tasks were famihar 
to her, she was expert in needlework, she went to market 
and learned to cook daintily and economically, as only 
the French middle class practise this most subtle of 
the domestic arts. She combined the practical train- 
ing of Moliere's charming Henriette of the Femmes 
Savantes with the studies of her learned sister Ar- 
mande. 

The artistic tastes and acquirements of Monsieur 
Phlipon influenced his daughter's studies also, and 
the teaching of Grandmamma Phlipon, a poor relation 
of great folk, who had spent much of her life in their 
households and had acquired the tone of la parfaite- 
ment bonne compagnie, were factors in Manon's breed- 
ing that curiously united simplicity of habits with 
complexity of interests. And these interests were 
complex indeed. Encyclopaedic information was ac- 
quired by some ambitious girls and sought by many, 
inspired by the master spirit of this century of inquiry, 
Voltaire, who handled all the things of the mind with 



PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD 21 

so light yet so sure a touch. To know something of 
everything was the ideal of studious youth, and several 
individuals came perilously near to attaining it, nota- 
bly the fifteen-year-old Laurette de Malboissiere, who 
mentions casually in one of her letters: **To-day, after 
reading Locke and Spinoza, and doing my Spanish 
theme and my Italian exercise, I took my lessons in 
mathematics and dancing. At five o'clock my little 
drawing-master came, who remained with me an hour 
and a quarter. After he left I read twelve chapters 
of Epictetus in Greek and the last part of Timon of 
Athens." The accomplished Laurette died at nine- 
teen, probably after having exhausted the sum of 
human knowledge or her capacity for acquiring it. 
Madame de Genlis, who was of tougher fibre, is an- 
other typical product of the higher culture. She 
preached, taught, wrote novels, played the harp, bled 
and bhstered, acted, danced, sang, composed, and 
learned half a dozen trades. 

The Phlipon family were on a lower social plane 
than the ladies just quoted, but the ideals of the petite 
bourgeoisie fluctuated between those of the people 
and the nobility, and the education of its daughters 
was a compromise that included many sage incon- 
gruities. "This little girl," Madame Roland writes 
of herself, "who read serious books, could explain 
the courses of the celestial spheres, handle the crayon 
and the graver, and at the age of eight was the best 
dancer of a number of young people older than her- 
self assembled at a family merrymaking, was often 
called to the kitchen to make an omelet, pick vege- 
tables, or skim the pot. In no occupation am I at a 



22 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

loss. I can prepare my own dinner as handily as Phi- 
lopoemen cut his wood." 

The studies of the little Phlipon began at what we 
should now consider a very early age; at four she knew 
how to read, and, as she was naturally studious, all 
that was necessary to continue her education was to 
provide her with books; they were her toys, and noth- 
ing but the sight of a flower could divert her attention 
from them. "Under the tranquil shelter of the pater- 
nal roof, I was happy from my infancy with books 
and flowers; in the narrow confines of a prison, in the 
bonds imposed by a most revolting tyranny, I have the 
same feeling, and I forget the injustice of men, their 
follies, and my misfortunes, with flowers and books.'* 

It was not to books alone that Manon's time was 
given; besides, lessons in writing, geography, and his- 
tory, dancing and music, formed an important part 
of her curriculum; she had masters for the guitar, 
the violin, and for singing; she drew from her father's 
collection of casts and began to engrave under his 
supervision. Miscellaneous reading ran an even course 
with study. The small house library was soon ex- 
hausted, a folio Bible, the Lives of the Saints, the 
Civil Wars of Appian, The G)mic Romance of Scar- 
ron, and a couple of volumes of memoirs, those of the 
romantic De Pontis and of the gallant jrondeuse 
Mademoiselle de Montpensier, were read and reread 
again and again. So insatiable was Manon's intel- 
lectual curiosity that, having unearthed an old tome 
on the art of heraldry, she studied it to such purpose 
that she surprised her father by a criticism on a seal 
composed against the rules of that art, and soon be- 



PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD 23 

came his oracle in such matters — a responsible posi- 
tion when letters were habitually closed with the 
blazon of the writer and such seals formed part of an 
engraver's work. 

A happy discovery soon furnished Manon with more 
nourishing fare for a growing intelligence. In rum- 
maging her father's studio she found a store of books 
belonging to one of his pupils, from which she furtively 
carried off a volume now and then to devour in her 
own den. One day she saw a work she had just finished 
in her mother's hands and, feeling assured that the 
discreet lady shared her discovery, Manon assumed 
the air of merely following the parental example and 
continued to borrow without scruple. The art student 
possessed sound literary taste — travels, plays, Vol- 
taire's Candide, a French translation of Tasso, Tele- 
maque, and Dacier's Plutarch formed his small col- 
lection. Manon's susceptible little heart and ardent 
imagination were touched and fired by the heroes of 
Fenelon and the Gerusalemme. It seems curious 
to-day that the course of young blood should have 
been quickened by the didactic Telemaque, or the 
operatic paladins of Tasso, yet Madame Roland was 
so moved by them that she would have plucked out 
her tongue "rather than have read aloud the episodes 
of the island of Calypso and a number of passages in 
Tasso; my breath grew short, a sudden blush covered 
my face, and my altered voice would have betrayed 
my agitation. With Telemachus I was Eucharis, and 
Herminia with Tancred. . . . I was these very charac- 
ters, and I saw only the objects that existed for them." 

The keen-edged mockery and positive good sense of 



24 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

Voltaire were excellent correctives for such excess of 
sensibility. Plutarch, however, proved the true patria 
for a proud yet impassioned spirit; henceforth it dwelt 
in his divine company of heroes and sages. The large 
and virile accents of the brave and wise of the antique 
world vibrating across the ages, made noble music in 
an ardent young heart. "Plutarch caused the French 
Revolution," Brunetiere somewhat arbitrarily asserted; 
it would have been truer perhaps to say that the antique 
biographer made many revolutionists. Madame Ro- 
land became the soul-child of the sage and tender 
old Greek. "Plutarch seemed to be exactly the nourish- 
ment that suited my mind. I shall never forget the 
Lent of 1763, at which time I was nine years old, when 
I carried it to church instead of my prayer-book. From 
that time I date the impressions and ideas that made 
me a repubhcan, though then I did not dream that I 
should ever become one." Many years afterwards, 
when she was first imprisoned, among the few books 
that she sent for was the Lives, "the Bible of the 
strong," as Michelet called them. No work exercised 
so deep and permanent an influence on Madame Ro- 
land's conduct and her mode of thought as this heroic 
symphony of literature. She wept that she was not 
bom in Athens or Sparta, and long afterwards, in her 
studies of philosophy, though she became "Jansenist, 
Cartesian, Stoic," and sceptic in turn, she ended by 
giving the palm to the Stoics, whom she early had 
learned to revere. Even in yielding to the enchant- 
ments of Rousseau she still preserved the virile tem- 
per which had been nourished and fortified by the 
love of Plutarch. 



PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD 25 

Among the authors who direct us, who guide us, 
who move us, who transport us to the starry realm of 
the imagination, there are those who above all others 
speak to our souls, who seem our very selves made 
wise and strong and eloquent, who address our spirit 
in a tongue that sounds strangely familiar, who ex- 
press the thoughts that in some groping, stumbling 
way we ourselves have conceived dimly, who endow 
with form, substance, and radiant reality ideas that 
were to us but vague and amorphous notions, mere 
shimmers and gleams of apprehension. There are in 
our literary pantheon some altars more richly crowned 
than others, some writers to whom we yield a more 
complete inner acquiescence, whom we elect for lead- 
ers, masters and lords of our spirit. 

In spite of her admiration for Plutarch's heroic pa- 
gans, however, Manon was a most devout Christian 
and a student of the Word; it is true that learning 
the Athanasian creed was rewarded by hearing the 
fairy-tale of Tangier of the Long Nose, a kind of mythic 
Cyrano de Bergerac, and that at first her unusual ac- 
tivity of mind was applied to the mysteries of her 
faith in a somewhat secular spirit. Madame Phlipon's 
younger brother was an ecclesiastic. This "dear little 
uncle," the Abbe Bimont, "handsome, benevolent, 
and gay," of whom Madame Roland tells us she "could 
never think without emotion," took a personal in- 
terest in his niece's religious education. Her presence 
at the catechism classes in the parish church, where 
her remarkable memory easily won her the first place, 
was a source of pride to the amiable abbe as well as 
to her parents. "Madame Phlipon was pious with- 



26 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

out being a devotee; she was, or endeavored to be, a 
believer, and she conformed to the rules of the church 
with the humility and regularity of one whose heart, 
having need of the support of its main principles, 
troubles itself but little with its details." The rever- 
ence with which she approached religious subjects 
deeply impressed a sensitive child. 

Madame Phlipon's devotion to duty was early felt 
and shared by her daughter. The family piety, so 
characteristic of the older races, demands many small 
sacrifices of women; among those of Manon's mother 
was a weekly visit to Grandmamma Bimont, a palsied 
and imbecile old lady. It was a severe penance for 
an active child to sit quiet for two hours while Madame 
Phlipon listened complaisantly to the gabble of Marie, 
the old lady's attendant. There were no books, only 
the Psalter, which palled after the French had been 
read and the Latin chanted some scores of times. The 
grandmamma's dotage was of a perverse and painful 
character. When Manon was gay the old lady wept; 
"if I fell down or hurt myself she would burst out 
laughing. ... I could have borne with her laughing 
at me; but her tears were always accompanied by 
pitiable and idiotic outbursts that shocked me inex- 
pressibly and filled me with terror." One day the child 
cried for vexation, and begged to go away; her mamma, 
to exercise the little one's patience, stayed the whole 
evening. "Nor did she fail at a more favorable time 
to explain that these wearisome visits were a sacred 
obligation, which it was an honor for me to share. I do 
not know how she managed it, but the lesson touched 
my heart," wrote Madame Roland years afterwards. 

If she was a Puritan in her respect for duty, Madame 



PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD 27 

Phlipon was a Parisienne in her devotion to dress. 
She was a true descendant of those mediaeval bur- 
gesses of Paris whose gorgeous gowns so surprised 
Isabeau de Baviere. "I thought I was the only queen; 
they are all queens here," petulantly exclaimed the 
royal bride. Madame Phlipon's passion was a vicarious 
one. Simple as one of Chardin's housewives in her 
own attire, all her frills and frivolity were lavished 
on her girl, who was her doll and her toy. From her 
infancy Madame Roland was dressed with a degree 
of elegance and even richness superior to her social 
station. "The fashionable gowns for young girls in 
those days were cut all in one piece, with a close-fitting 
bodice; they were made like the court dresses, very 
tight in the waist, which they showed to advantage, 
very ample below, with a long sweeping train trimmed 
according to the taste of the wearer or the fashion of 
the season. Mine were of fine silk of some simple pat- 
tern and quiet color, but in price and quality as rich 
as the best holiday costumes of my mother." Truly 
an appropriate and hygienic dress for a child ! Some- 
thing of this childish coquetry remained with Madame 
Roland through life. Though simple, almost Spartan 
in her tastes, she was constantly well dressed, and her 
beautiful and abundant hair was always becomingly 
arranged. Dumouriez, who feared and resisted her 
influence, wrote of her during the busiest period of 
her life that she was "toujours mise elegamment." 

The position of puppet for the display of fine clothes 
was almost as trying as that of visitor to a weak-minded 
grandmother. Rousseau had not yet struck the fetters 
from the poor little prisoner of the old regime. Chil- 
dren were still in the bondage of stiff stays and farthin- 



28 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

gales, the gyves of trains and high heels, the restraints 
of frizzed and powdered coiffures. The tiny, demure 
gentlemen and ladies in manner and dress were their 
elders seen through a diminishing glass. The dainty 
doll who curtsies so gravely in Cazot's "Dancing Les- 
son," the little dunce standing primly erect in Char- 
din's "Bonne Education," or the miniature coquette, 
who is squired by an equally diminutive cavalier in 
Moreau's "Petits Parrains " — all these exquisite, wee 
creatures are Lilliputians, not denizens of Childland. 
Madame Roland confides to us the tortures of elaborate 
toilettes, of lacing and hair-dressing, always accom- 
panied by gasps and tears, which preceded a promenade 
or a visit. Fortunately on ordinary days her finery 
was laid aside and she went to early mass with her 
mother, or alone to the nearest greengrocer's to buy 
the parsley or salad which the maid had forgotten, 
dressed in a simple linen frock. Her dress presented 
the same contrasts as did her education. 

Meanwhile, under this outward diversity of tastes 
and habits, her inner life was a harmonious and con- 
sistent one. From her childhood (if we may trust her 
memory of it) the future heroine of the Republic pos- 
sessed the faculty, as invaluable to a student as to a 
diplomatist, of living in the present, of absorption in 
the interest of the moment. A fervid imagination, 
furnished by good reading with pure and noble images, 
realized vividly the motives and acts of the knights 
and heroes who formed her mental society. Cato 
or Godfrey was to her as real as and more compre- 
hensible than the haggling herb-seller round the cor- 
ner or the children she met at the catechism class. 



PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD 29 

The lack of playmates of her own age fostered Ma- 
rion's introspective life. From the time she learned to 
read, her highest delights and tenderest sorrows had 
been found between the covers of her books. In 
them she had early discovered the open sesame to a 
wonder world of unfading joys, a region of marvels 
wherein a poor little girl in her coarse-stufF gown, 
shivering beside a drafty window, was transformed 
into a princess, a paladin, a patriot, or a martyr. 
Manon, it will be observed, always appropriated the 
leading roles — nothing short of the part of the grande 
amoureuse or that of the hero himself satisfied her as- 
pirations. 

Nor was she content to shut away all her state and 
splendor in some dingy volume when the magic hour 
was over and she was called to her needle or her lessons. 
Manon was the very reverse of antinomian; her pre- 
occupation, as soon as she began to reflect, was to live 
her thoughts, to translate into action her loved hero's 
deeds and high emprises. Was there no place left for 
Brutus's virtue and Tancred's courage in her daily 
existence ? Were noble lives and great examples to 
be admired coldly, disinterestedly, merely as one did 
the antique busts and statues in her father's studio ? 
Even those material images she copied; why not the 
grander human examples of a glorious past } She felt 
within herself the flutter of newly fledged pinions, a 
potentiality for sacrifice, a goading desire to do as well 
as to dream — to be an actor, not a spectator only, in 
the mystery of life. 



CHAPTER III 

AUSTERITY AND FRIVOLITY 

Confirmation, a solemn ceremony to the impres- 
sionable child of a pious mother, precipitated these 
vague outreachings into a definite aspiration. The 
thought of her first communion penetrated Manon 
with religious awe. Even her simple, quiet existence 
appeared to her far too worldly to admit of proper 
preparation for it. The Philothee of Saint Francis 
de Sales, most amiable of saints, became the livre de 
chevet of the little pagan who three years before had 
carried her Plutarch to mass, and who now laid aside 
her poets and historians to study the dogmas of her 
faith. The words she had formerly learned so lightly 
grew weighty with spiritual meaning. She followed 
with increasing love and reverence the holy offices of 
her church, deeply moved by her new comprehension 
of the divine mysteries embodied in their gorgeous 
ceremonial. All the time she could save from her daily 
tasks was given to prayer, meditation, and books of 
devotion. Bible-reading as usual suggested doubts 
of the divine goodness. The transformation of the 
devil into a serpent and the apparent cruelty of the 
Supreme Being in permitting this metamorphosis 
caused her first stumble in the path of behef, but grad- 
ually the constant contemplation of the grand central 
motive of her religion effaced all the neophyte's doubts 

30 



AUSTERITY AND FRIVOLITY 31 

and "the reign of sentiment in her heart began with 
the love of God." 

To love, with this intense child, was to give herself 
unreservedly to the loved. How could she serve her 
Lord ? — for in service only is love made visible. 
She practised secret austerities; fasted, surreptitiously 
sprinkled her beefsteak with ashes, and said long prayers 
kneeling on the bare floor on bitter winter nights. She 
again sighed for the vanished days of Greece and Rome, 
but for the sake of the tortures and persecutions that 
would have won her a martyr's crown. The lives 
of the saints, the heroic who were also the holy, 
thrilled her with admiration. Alas, pincers and racks, 
tigers and arenas were hopelessly out of reach ! 
Martyrdom in France (except for a Protestant or a 
sceptic like the Chevalier de la Barre) was obsolete, 
but self-immolation in another form was to be had 
for the asking. In the solitude of the cloister sanctity 
could be sought; there one could die to the world 
more slowly but not less truly than under the axe or 
among the beasts at Ephesus. 

For some time the thought of leaving her mother 
sent Manon's thoughts shuddering away from the 
idea of a convent. But what costlier sacrifice could 
she offer the Lord than this unique love of her heart ? 
Practical always in the application of the ideal to daily 
life, her resolution swiftly grew into action, and one 
evening, after supper, the Phlipons were startled by 
seeing their daughter fall at their feet and with floods 
of tears implore their consent to enter a convent. 

The convent, not the veil, Manon pleaded for, as 
the first station in the thorny path of renunciation. 



32 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

She besought a pious retreat in which fittingly to pre- 
pare herself to receive the greatest of Christian privi- 
leges. Madame Phlipon, touched by her daughter's 
desire and the suffering it had evidently cost the child, 
yielded a reluctant, her father a more cordial, consent. 
Manon's music-master recommended a religious house 
where he visited some titled pupils, and after the pre- 
liminary inquiries a convent of the Sisterhood of the 
Congregation was chosen (May 7, 1765). This build- 
ing, once in the rue Saint Etienne, Faubourg Saint 
Marcel, has been long since swept away by the rising 
tide of business needs. A few such houses still remain 
like tranquil islands of gray rock and green grass and 
venerable trees, midstream of the rush and whirl of 
modern Paris. The dusky, fragrant chapel, the long, 
bare corridors, the beamed refectory with its sculp- 
tured wall-fountain and lofty reading-desk, the deep 
garden, bird-haunted, with its mossy statues of virgin 
saints and its lichen-covered benches, formed a back- 
ground as harmonious for a young devotee as that 
which glows dimly behind the glimmering halo of a 
holy maiden in some warm-hued, mediaeval panel. 
Could piety, at once fervent and romantic, discover a 
more congenial retreat ^ The peace of the cloister and 
the industry of the world were united within these 
walls. The nuns of the Congregation taught poor 
children in a free day-school, and received a certain 
number of young girls of the petite noblesse and the 
bourgeoisie as boarding-scholars, for girls, when not en- 
tirely cloister-bred, generally passed a few years at 
least in a convent. 

The discipline and comparative isolation of these 



AUSTERITY AND FRIVOLITY 33 

modest religious houses were more salutary than severe. 
They were far removed from the magnificent world- 
liness of the abbey of Fontevrault, where royal prin- 
cesses were sent to hold miniature courts and to give 
laws to their instructors. They bore not the faintest 
resemblance to the aristocratic chapter of Chelles, 
where baby patricians were drilled in social obser- 
vances, and etiquette and genealogy were first in the 
short list of studies. The more humble convent of the 
rue Saint Etienne was to the religious world what the 
bourgeois household represented in the social hier- 
archy. 

Few girls are not the better for the mild rigors of a 
conventual rule. Especially is it valuable for intensely 
individual natures, impatient of restraint and recal- 
citrant to command. The pervasive discipline that 
seems less the exercise of individual authority than 
the impersonal sway of law, the universal subjection 
to duty, the prompt, silent, military obedience im- 
partially exacted from all, impress and subdue the 
most insubordinate, while the low voices and gentle 
manners of the nuns soften the austerity of their rule. 
It makes for more disinterested aims in after life when 
for a time the young are brought into contact with 
those who have elected self-abnegation as an ideal, in 
theory at least. The monastic cultus of purity and 
sacrifice remains in certain natures long after the piety 
that first inspired them has faded away, to chasten 
the imagination and strengthen the will. Madame 
Roland is herself an example of the persistence of these 
benign influences. There is no sweeter picture of con- 
vent life than that of this child of Plutarch, and if 



34 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

the nunneries of the eighteenth century were often 
centres of vanity and frivoHty, where all the artificial 
distinctions of social life were observed as strictly be- 
fore the altar as before the throne, if they were some- 
times dark places of cruelty and crime, they were often 
nurseries of the amiable virtues. The obscure con- 
vent of Madame Roland's Memoirs is as typical as 
that of Diderot's Religieuse, or the lax retreat at 
Montfleury where Madame de Tencin began her tem- 
pestuous career. 

Manon found in the ladies of the Congregation kind 
and well-bred if not very learned teachers. The pre- 
cocious child was already familiar with most of their 
subjects of study, and her quickness, diligence, and 
pretty, sedate manners soon endeared her to the sisters. 
Two of them, of widely differing types, she sketched 
in her Memoirs. Mother Sainte Sophie had become a 
nun at fifty and brought with her to the cloister the 
high breeding and varied accomplishments of a woman 
of the world. Would you know what they were, these 
accomplishments that made their possessor the envy 
of the less gifted? "She wrote a fine hand, embroi- 
dered with elegance, was versed in orthography and 
not unacquainted with history." "Knowledge puffeth 
up " — no wonder the Mother Sainte Sophie was slightly 
pedantic and that the other sisters looked with green 
eyes upon her superiority. This erudite person soon 
became attached to the studious and demure little 
Phlipon, gave her private instruction and lessons in 
reading aloud, an acquirement much valued when, 
modern conditions being reversed, readers were many 
and books were few. Mother Sainte Sophie was too 




^^^,.^^/.^"^- 



/' ) / i ■ / / • y y 

/^^ ■ / ^ ^ 



THE BOXXEVILLE ENGRAVING OF MADAME ROLAND 



AUSTERITY AND FRIVOLITY 35 

imposing, too superior, to be loved by her disciple; 
it was another, humbler sister who won Manon's heart 
and kept it all her life. This was Angelique Boufflers, 
a dowerless girl, who had renounced the world that 
had abandoned her at the age of seventeen. "Nature 
had formed her of sulphur and saltpetre; her repressed 
energy exalted to the highest degree the tenderness of 
her heart and the vivacity of her mind. Her lack of 
fortune had caused her to be placed among the lay 
sisters with whom she had nothing in common except 
their rude tasks. There are minds that have no need 
of cultivation. Sainte Agathe [the religious name of 
this nun], without the help of education, was superior 
not only to her companions but to most of the Sisters 
of the Choir." This young woman was the convent 
drudge; her duty was to wait on the boarders, and, as 
she was amiable and willing, she was always overloaded 
with work. Nevertheless, she made time to serve 
Manon with special care, petted her, gave her the 
key to her own cell where the Httle girl found a small 
library of mystical works, and "a. charming canary 
tame and caressing, which she [Angelique] had taught 
to speak." This seems surprising, but the eighteenth 
was a century of talkers, and the known loquacity of 
nuns may have proved contagious. "Cette colomhe 
gemissantej" as Agathe is often called in the IVlemoirs, 
was swept out of her dove-cote by the whirlwind of 
the Revolution (October, 1792). Vegetating on a 
scanty pension, she was living near Sainte Pelagic 
when Madame Roland was confined there, and sweet- 
ened by her visits and her sympathy her old pupil's 
captivity. 



36 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

Manon's dutiful affection for the nuns was soon 
succeeded by a first passion for a girl of fourteen — I 
write passion advisedly, for no milder word could ex- 
press the emotion that for many years tinged the whole 
texture of Manon's inner life. A clearer, purer flame 
was never kindled on the altar of friendship — a flame 
that consumed the thought of self in its votary, that 
was guarded with jealous care, and nurtured with 
daily offerings. 

Sophie Cannet, the lady paramount of Manon's 
affections, was a native of Amiens where her parents 
belonged to the rich bourgeoisie. She was her mother's 
favorite, and, to soften her exile from home, her elder 
sister Henriette, who had already made her social 
debut, was bundled off to school with her. Henriette 
considered, not unreasonably, that she had been sacri- 
ficed to her sister, but her mother had another motive 
in cloistering her. This brilliant, handsome girl was 
in much need of a wholesome restraint that neither 
Madame Cannet nor the gay, frivolous little world 
of Amiens could furnish — hence Henriette's return 
to a convent for a brief season. These sisters possessed 
no trait in common but their attachment to Manon. 
"Henriette was frank, even brusque, impatient to 
irascibility, gay, often a madcap; she was subject to 
outbreaks of temper which were always followed by 
most affectionate atonements. You could not help 
loving even while you scolded her, yet it was difficult 
to live with her on pleasant and impossible on reason- 
able terms, for she was as volatile and flighty as she 
was witty and vivacious." 

Sophie was the Penserosa of this Allegra. **The 



AUSTERITY AND FRIVOLITY 37 

sobriety of premature reason characterized her; she 
did not feel deeply because her head was cool. She 
loved to reflect and to argue. She was a pitiless 
reasoner; she wished to analyze, to know, and to dis- 
cuss everything. I talked much less than she did, and 
did not lay stress on anything but results. She en- 
joyed conversing with me, for I was a good listener, 
and when I did not think as she did my opposition 
was so gentle for fear of offending her that in spite of 
all our differences of opinion we have never quarrelled. 
Three years older than I, and a little less humble, Sophie 
possessed an external advantage which I did not envy 
her; she talked prettily whereas I could only answer." 
Sophie, as one sees her in Madame Roland's letters 
as well as in the calmer, more detached estimate of 
the Memoirs, was a somewhat cold, quiet girl, an in- 
dustrious student, fond of reading, rather self-centred, 
and lacking interest in others. But she possessed a 
good mind, and if she never offered help or sympathy 
she never refused it. A more vivid contrast to her 
expansive, imaginative admirer cannot be imagined. 

It was love at first sight with Manon, a real coup de 
foudre. Sophie appeared in the convent garden, deeply 
affected by parting from her mother. Her white gauze 
veil could not hide the tears that bathed her sweet 
face, and Manon was very naturally impressed, in- 
terested, and touched. At supper the Cannet sisters 
were placed at her table, and Sophie's lack of appetite 
and silent grief was a mute but potent appeal to an 
affectionate and imaginative child. "Her sorrow had 
moved me, her manner pleased me, I felt that in her 
I had found a friend, and we became inseparable. I 



38 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

grew fond of her with the self-abandonment which 
flows from the need of loving at the sight of an object 
made to satisfy that need. Her company was infinitely 
dear to me because I needed to confide to some one 
who understood the sentiments I felt, and which seemed 
to increase by being shared." Here speaks the offspring 
of a Latin race, and a social people. To us it seems 
that an emotion shut deep down in the heart gains 
in intensity like the close-stopped vial of precious 
perfume that when unsealed loses its rare potency of 
fragrance. Henceforth Manon's solitude was a deux. 
"Work, reading, and walks were all shared with 
Sophie"; and even in their prayers they were not 
divided, for Sophie's devotion, though less tender and 
effusive than that of her little friend, was equally ab- 
sorbing. Together they sought counsels of perfection. 
Untried and innocent creatures, to them a life of re- 
nunciation seemed as easy as it was noble, and they 
both looked forward to consecrating their young 
maidenhood to the service of religion. 

These pious aspirations were constantly stimulated 
by their environment. All the observances of monas- 
tic life converge upon one central idea, — Eternity. 
Towards a realization of this grand abstraction all 
daily rites and pious practices, prayers and meditations, 
direct the mind, while the significance and beauty 
of imposing ceremonies penetrate the heart and caress 
the eye. "Women understand wonderfully well how 
to set off these services, to accompany these ceremonies 
with everything that can lend them charm or splendor, 
and nuns excel in this art. A novice took the veil soon 
after my arrival at the convent. The church and the 



AUSTERITY AND FRIVOLITY 39 

altar were decorated with flowers, with bright cande- 
labra, silk curtains, and magnificent hangings. The 
large gathering, which filled the outer church, was 
cheerful as a family appears at the wedding of one of 
its members. Gorgeously dressed and with a trium- 
phant air, the young victim appeared at the grating 
in much pomp, which she presently laid aside to re- 
appear covered with a white veil and crowned with 
roses. I still feel the nervous agitation that her slightly 
tremulous voice gave me when she chanted melodiously 
the customary verse: Elegit, etc. — *In this place have 
I chosen my abode and will establish it forever.* [Here 
the vivid picture fades from the prisoner's mental 
retina, and the lonely captive cries aloud:] I have 
not forgotten the notes of this little anthem; I can 
repeat them as exactly as if I had heard them but yes- 
terday. I would I could sing them in America. Great 
God ! With what accents would I chant them to-day ! 
[Then Memory flashes the vanished vision back again.] 
When the novice had pronounced her vows, as she 
lay on the ground, she was covered with a pall, under 
which one would have thought she was to be buried. 
I shuddered with terror. She was an image of the 
absolute rupture of every earthly tie, and the renun- 
ciation of all that was most dear to her. I was no longer 
myself. I was she. I thought they were tearing me 
away from my mother, and I shed floods of tears." 

Naturally enough, to a creature of such lively sensi- 
bilities, her own first communion was an intense emo- 
tional experience. "Prepared by all the means cus- 
tomary in convents, by retreats, long prayers, silence, 
and meditation, it was considered by me as a solemn 



40 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

covenant and the pledge of immortal happiness. It 
fired my imagination and touched my heart to such a 
degree that, bathed in tears and transported with 
divine love, I was incapable of walking to the altar 
without the aid of a nun, who, supporting me under 
the arms helped me to the Holy Table." 

These crises of religious feeling left no fugitive im- 
pression on Manon's nature. "Philosophy has dissi- 
pated the illusions of a vain belief, but it has not anni- 
hilated the effect of certain objects on my senses, or 
their associations with the ideas that they used to 
quicken. I can still attend divine service with pleasure 
if it be performed with solemnity. I forget the char- 
latanism of priests, their ridiculous fables, and absurd 
mysteries, and I see only a group of weak men im- 
ploring the help of a Supreme Being. The wretched- 
ness of mankind, and the consoling hope of an omnip- 
otent Judge fill my thoughts. Light fancies fade 
away, the passions are calmed, the love of my duties 
is revived; if music form a part of the ceremony I 
find myself transported to another world, and I come 
away a better woman from a place where the fool- 
ish and thoughtless crowd resort to, bow before a bit 
of bread." Alas ! That so fine a page should be 
coarsened with contempt. She continues: "It is with 
religion as with many other human institutions: it does 
not change the disposition of the individual, but is as- 
similated by his nature, and is exalted or debased with 
it. The mass of mankind thinks little, believes blindly, 
and acts by instinct so that there exists a perpetual 
contradiction between the principles it professes and 
the conduct it pursues. Strong characters act differ- 



AUSTERITY AND FRIVOLITY 41 

ently, they demand consistency, and with them action 
is a faithful translation of belief. In my infancy I 
naturally received the creed that was offered to me. 
It was mine until I was sufficiently enlightened to 
examine it, but until then all my acts confonned to 
it. I was astonished at the levity of those who, pro- 
fessing a similar faith acted in contradiction to it, as 
I now am indignant at the cowardice of men who, de- 
sirous of possessing a fatherland, value their lives when 
they are to be risked in its service." Thus the Spartan 
citoyenne; little Manon was still in the idyllic age of 
faith when the year of convent life which her parents 
had granted her drew to its close (1766). 

It was with a strangely heavy heart that the child 
bade good-by to all her haunts: the long cloisters where 
from the walls the epitaphs of nuns long dead pointed 
out the way to paradise; the chapel where so many 
blissful hours consecrated to meditation had been 
passed; and kind Sister Agathe's austerely dainty cell. 
There were affecting farewells and promises to return 
soon and often, and to write constantly; there were 
keepsakes given and portraits exchanged, all the poor 
little devices by vhich young affection seeks to render 
enduring the essentially transitory. At last, however, 
the many farewells were said, and Manon quitted 
the house of the Lord "regretted, esteemed, and em- 
braced by the whole sisterhood, and bedewed by the 
tears of Sophie and Agathe." 

To leave them was not, however, to return to her 
mother, for it had been decided in family conclave 
that Manon was to pass a year with her grandmamma 
PhHpon on the island of Saint Louis before returning 



42 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

home. " Bonne-maman " Phlipon was one of those 
captivating old ladies who seem the special fruit of 
the ancient regime in France, mellow fruit delicately 
preserved, sometimes in the spice of wit, sometimes 
confites en devotion. * Bonne-maman's " husband had 
died during the first year of her marriage, and Ma- 
non's father was her only child. Poverty obliged her 
to accept the assistance of some rich relatives, the 
de Boismorel, who employed her as governess to their 
two children. A heritage rendered her independent 
in her later years, and she occupied an apartment on 
the island of Saint Louis with her maiden sister Made- 
moiselle Rotisset, appropriately named Angelique. 
"This worthy maiden, asthmatic and devout, pure as 
an angel and simple as a child, was the very humble 
servant of her elder sister." She became Manon's 
gouvernantey while Grandmother Phlipon continued the 
child's education. 

Bonne-maman was an engaging person, still young 
in heart and spirits. Madame Roland's sketch of her 
evokes from the silvery dust of the pastel the image 
of one of La Tour's amiable and witty old ladies. 
"She was a gracious and sweet-tempered little woman, 
whose agreeable manners, polished language, winning 
smile, and sprightly glances still hinted at some pre- 
tensions to please, or at least to remind us that she 
had once pleased. She was sixty-five or -six years old 
[seventy in 1766], took pains with her dress, which, 
however, was appropriate to her age, for she prided 
herself above all things on the knowledge and obser- 
vance of decorum. As she was very plump, light of 
foot, extremely erect, with pretty little hands which 



AUSTERITY AND FRIVOLITY 43 

she used gracefully, and a touch of sentiment in her 
conversation qualified, however, with gay but always 
delicate pleasantry, the traces of age in her were al- 
most imperceptible. She was very fond of young people 
whose society pleased her, and by whom she was rather 
proud of being sought." 

With this wise worldling and her saintly sister Manon 
passed her thirteenth year very pleasantly. She had 
secretly resolved to enter the religious life, and already 
looked upon the nuns of the Visitation, the daughters 
of Saint Francis de Sales, as her future sisters. The 
quiet days with the two old ladies began with early 
mass as the principal event of the day, an occasional 
visit to the convent, a letter to Sophie, and plenty 
of time for reading from Saint Augustine's Manual, 
and her favorite Philothee, better known to EngHsh 
readers as The Introduction to a Devout Life. No 
works were more suited to foster a religious temper 
and to create an atmosphere of celestial illusion in an 
innocent and ardent soul. Bossuet's controversial 
writings opened new vistas of thought. ** Favorable as 
they were to the cause they defended, they sometimes 
stated the arguments against it, and thus set me to 
weighing my belief." This was Manon's first hesitat- 
ing step into the dark intricate maze of religious 
doubt. Meanwhile the letters of Madame de Sevigne 
fixed her taste and a store of works on mythology 
awakened her imagination. Occasionally the pleasant 
monotony of her seclusion was broken by a cere- 
monious visit, with its irksome preparations, hair- 
dressing, and an elaborate toilette. A morning call 
on Madame de Boismorel, the rich connection of 



44 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

Grandmamma Phlipon, is at once so vivid a genre 
picture, and has been so often quoted as determining 
the nature of Madame Roland's political opinions 
that it merits citation, 

Madame de Boismorel's singularities had been some- 
times the subject of "bonne-maman's" animated talks. 
This lady, whose children had been educated by Ma- 
dame Phlipon, was in reality only a rich bourgeoises 
but she possessed the manners and habits of the noble 
society in which she moved. She received her con- 
fessor, and other less ascetic male visitors in bed and 
during her morning toilette, and showed no more hesi- 
tation in changing her chemise before them than did 
Madame du Chatelet in bidding a footman add hot 
water to the tub in which she was bathing. On one 
occasion when grandmamma begged Madame de Bois- 
morel to control her extravagance for her children's 
sake, she coolly replied that they were but "secondary 
considerations." These revelations afforded material 
for reflection to the admirer of Plutarch's republicans, 
and naturally led her to make certain comparisons. 

Documents are apt to dispel the theory that polished 
manners and stately courtesies were essentially at- 
tributes of the aristocracy, nor were they as diffused 
as the artists who have preserved only the externals 
of a society which had refined the forms of politeness 
into a delicate art, unwittingly persuade us. An in- 
stance of the insolence with which even a noble of 
liberal opinions, and the comrade-in-arms and admirer 
of American republicans, addressed a bourgeois minister 
of state, is afforded by a recently published letter of 
Lafayette's. In it he apologized ( .'' ) for the rudeness 



AUSTERITY AND FRIVOLITY 45 

of his aide-de-camp to one of Roland's clerks, and the 
original offense is crushed into insignificance by the 
intolerable haughtiness of the excuse. The same caste 
feeling was more genially exhibited by Mirabeau, who, 
on reaching home after the memorable night of the 
4th of August, when the nobility renounced titles and 
privileges, seized his sleepy varlet by the ear and 
shouted: " Tu sais, drole, pour toi je suis toujours Mon- 
sieur le Marquis."" The wealthy roturiers whose golden 
keys unlocked the portals of the patriciate found this 
tone of impertinent condescension only too easy to 
acquire, and Madame de Boismorel represents a type 
of which playwright and noveHst have made effective 
use. 

*'We arrived," writes Madame Roland, **at the 
Rue Saint Louis, in the Marais, about noon. As we 
entered the house, all the servants, beginning with 
the porter, saluted Madame Phlipon with respect 
and affection, and she answered cordially and with 
dignity. So far so good. But then her little grand- 
daughter was noticed, pointed out, and complimented. 
I began to feel a kind of uneasiness, difficult to explain, 
but I felt that servants might look at me, but that it 
was not proper for them to pay me compliments. We 
go on, a tall lackey calls out our names, and we enter 
a salon where Madame de Boismorel is gravely work- 
ing on some tapestry, seated, with her lap-dog beside 
her, on what was called then not an ottoman but a 
canape. Madame de Boismorel was about the age, 
height, and figure of my grandmamma, but her dress 
showed less good taste than a desire to advertise her 
wealth and social position, and her face, far from ex- 



46 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

pressing a desire to please, plainly demanded con- 
sideration and expressed her consciousness of deserv- 
ing it. A bit of rich lace puckered into the shape of 
a small cap with broad wings, pointed at the ends like 
a hare's ears, perched on her head, showing hair that 
possibly was false, arranged with the coquettish sever- 
ity becoming her sixty-odd years; double layers of 
rouge lent to her expressionless eyes a boldness that 
was more than sufficient to make me lower mine. 

"*Ah, good morning. Mademoiselle Rotisset,' Ma- 
dame de Boismorel called out in a loud, hard voice 
as she rose to meet us. (Mademoiselle ! What, my 
grandmother is Mademoiselle in this house !) * Really, 
I am very glad to see you. And this fine child, your 
grandchild, of course ? She promises well. Come 
here, sweetheart, and sit down beside me. She is timid. 
How old is she, your grandchild. Mademoiselle Rotis- 
set ? She is rather dark, but her skin is fine; it will 
clear soon. She has a good figure. You ought to have 
a lucky hand, my little friend. Have you ever bought 
a lottery-ticket ?' 

"'Never, madame; I do not like games of chance.' 

"*I believe you — at your age one fancies that one 
has a sure game. What a voice, sweet and full, but 
how grave she is ! Are you not rather pious ?' 

"*I know my duties, and I try to perform them.' 

"'Good, good; you wish to become a nun, do you 
not?' 

"'I do not know my future, so I do not try to settle 
it!' 

"'How sententious she is; your granddaughter is 
fond of reading. Mademoiselle Rotisset V 



AUSTERITY AND FRIVOLITY 47 

"*It is her greatest pleasure. She spends half the 
day in reading.' 

" *0h, I can see that. Take care she does not become 
a bluestocking, that would be a pity!' 

"The conversation then turned upon the family and 
friends of the mistress of the house. My grandmother 
asked for news of the uncle and the cousin, the daughter- 
in-law and the friend, for Abbe Langlois, the Marquise 
de Levi, Councillor Brion, and Monsieur Parent, the 
cure. They talked of the health of all these people, 
their pedigrees and their eccentricities — for example, 
of Madame Roude, who, in spite of her great age, was 
proud of her neck, and always exposed it except when 
she got in and out of her carriage; then she covered 
it with a large handkerchief which she always carried 
in her pocket for these emergencies, because, as she 
observed, 'such things were not made to be shown 
to lackeys.' 

"During this dialogue, Madame de Boismorel took 
a few stitches in her work, petted her little dog, and 
often stared at me. I took care not to meet her eyes, 
because I disliked them; but I looked around at the 
furniture and the decorations of the apartment, which 
were more pleasing than the lady. My blood ran faster, 
I felt my color rise, my heart beat quickly, and my 
breath came short. I did not ask myself then why 
my grandmamma did not sit on the sofa, or why Ma- 
dame de Boismorel always called her 'Mademoiselle 
Rotisset,' but I had the feeling that leads to such ques- 
tions, and I looked upon the end of the visit as a re- 
prieve from punishment. 

" *Ah, by the way, do not forget to buy me a lottery- 



48 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

ticket, and have your granddaughter choose the num- 
ber, do you hear. Mademoiselle Rotisset ? I want it 
from her hand. Kiss me, and you, my little sweet- 
heart; don't cast down your eyes so much. They are 
good to look at, those eyes, and no confessor will for- 
bid you to open them. Ah, Mademoiselle Rotisset ! 
You will have many bows, I promise you, and that 
before long. Good day, ladies!' And Madame de 
Boismorel rang her bell, ordered Lafleur to call in two 
days' time at Mademoiselle Rotisset's for the lottery- 
ticket she was to send her, quieted her barking dog, 
and was already back on her sofa before we had fairly 
left the room." 

Madame de Boismorel's compliments were no more 
grateful to Manon than those of her servants, and 
the intelligent and gently bred child shrank instinc- 
tively from what she felt to be the coarse flattery and 
insolent patronage of this would-be fine lady, who 
called her dignified grandmamma "Mademoiselle," and 
treated a reserved and rather priggish person of twelve 
as though she were another lap-dog. Some writers — 
Taine, for instance — have given great importance to 
this visit, gravely quoting it as a proof of the future 
Girondine's envy of the aristocracy, of its fine manners 
and many privileges, forgetting that Madame de Bois- 
morel was a connection of her critic's and a bourgeoise, 
not a noble. 

This pretentious and vulgar woman had a delicate- 
minded and considerate son, who soon came to return 
Madame Phlipon's visit. His deferential affection for 
her, the tactful manner in which he recalled his rela- 
tionship and his obligations to his former governess, 



AUSTERITY AND FRIVOLITY 49 

would have contented the most exacting of grand- 
daughters, while his wide reading and philosophical 
views, disapproved of by his mother and sister, and 
by their frivolous and bigoted circle of friends and 
parasites, awakened Manon's respect and interest. 
In time he became as warm a friend as a married man, 
moving in another social circle, could be to a lonely 
girl with whom he had many intellectual sympathies. 



CHAPTER IV 

RELIGIOUS DOUBTS 

Meantime Manon's year of probation had worn to 
its close (May, 1767), To return to her home on the 
busy Quai de I'Horloge after the sleepy quiet of the 
He Saint Louis, was like re-entering the world. The 
Pont Neuf and its adjoining quais were in the 
eighteenth century one of the whirling centres of Pari- 
sian activity. They were originally the goldsmith's 
quarter, even before King Henry IV filled up the west- 
ern end of the island, which now cuts sharply into the 
river like the prow of a galley, and built the fine lines 
of houses of which only two remain unspoiled by re- 
construction. They recall, in their peaked roofs and 
pleasant autumnal coloring of warm-toned red brick 
and russet stone, their contemporary, the historic 
square of the Place Roy ale. It was in the second of 
these two houses which have fortunately remained 
almost unaltered, the one at the corner of the Place 
Dauphine and the Quai de I'Horloge that Gatien 
Phlipon set up his shop and his household gods. His 
ambitions had grown since his daughter's birth in 
the sad little Rue de la Lanterne. The returns from 
his own art, engraving, were too slow for a vain man 
who was fond of fine things; and enamelling, in which 
he was an expert, had slightly injured his eyes. Selling 
jewelry on commission and trading in diamonds was 
an easier and faster way to luxurious living, and no 

so 



RELIGIOUS DOUBTS 51 

artistic objections to commerce trammelled him. Nat- 
urally location on the Pont Neuf bettered his chances 
for business. There truly were possible customers of 
all kinds. All Paris crossed the bridge, lounged on 
the quais, and strolled in the Place Dauphine. For 
two centuries, from Chicot's time to Beaumarchais's 
day, the Pont Neuf had been a try sting-place for Pari- 
sians. 

Amid the press of painted coaches and gilded sedan- 
chairs the files of donkeys laden with green stuff, the 
cavaliers who pushed their way through a yielding 
but expostulating crowd, the heavy drays loaded with 
wine or oil or wheat, the mountebanks set up plat- 
forms where they juggled and danced in the midst of 
the vortex. Here a charlatan was selling an elixir; 
there an ambulant dentist was pulling a tooth. A 
powdered fop, seeking a jewelled frame for a beauty's 
miniature, was jostled by a barefooted friar on his 
way to Notre Dame. The painted lady of quality 
rubbed elbows with the high-rouged woman of pleasure, 
and the gold-laced lackey, hurrying by with a billet- 
doux, pushed aside the trim housewife on her way 
to market. A populous place indeed was the neigh- 
borhood of the Pont Neuf, if we may trust garrulous 
Mercier and the old engravings. 

The noise and bustle must have reached the second 
story of the house on the Quai de I'Horloge (now No. 
41). A plan of the PhHpons' apartment was made by 
the architect Duflocq for Dauban after tracing the 
original walls and partitions under the changes of the 
last hundred and fifty years. It is a fairly typical 
bourgeois domicile, consisting of a kitchen, a large 



52 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

bedroom, a studio containing the engraver's etabliy 
working-materials, and many pieces of sculpture, and 
a pleasant room, neatly furnished, decorated with 
mirrors and several pictures, which to-day would be 
called a salon, and which modest Madame Phlipon 
termed a salle. In one corner of this salon a cabinet 
or a niche had been made by partitioning off the ob- 
long space between the large chimneypiece and the 
house wall that fronted the Quai de I'Horloge. This 
tiny cell was lighted by a small window now walled 
up, probably directly under the commemorative in- 
scription which tells the passer-by that 

Madame Roland 

Nee a Paris 
Le i8 Mars 1754 

Fut elevee dans cette maison. 

The cabinet, or as an English contemporary would 
have called it, the closet, was just large enough to 
contain a bed, a chair, a writing-table, and some book- 
shelves. Eighteenth-century folk cherished these re- 
treats, cosey refuges from the cold and noise and 
publicity of large and lofty rooms. The tendency 
to build a snug nest in the midst of surrounding 
spaciousness grew constantly with the advance of 
comfort from Madame de Maintenon's portable niche 
of crimson brocade wherein she "tented out" in the 
frigid splendor of Versailles to the exquisite petit-s 
appartements of Marie Antoinette. In a less humble 
home than the Phlipons' the closet would have been 
a boudoir with its elegant couch, its inlaid embroidery- 



1 



RELIGIOUS DOUBTS 53 

frame, and writing-desk; engravings and miniatures 
on the walls, porcelains and enamels on the shelves, 
a harp in the corner, and a lap-dog on a cushion. But 
Manon's closet was as simple as a nun's except for 
the guitar on the bed and the flowers that for three 
seasons of the year bloomed on the window-ledge. 
Beyond the embowered casement lay the long silvery 
lines of the quays, the shining reaches of the river, the 
tender, dove-tinted sky of Paris, and the serene sense 
of space and air. 

Manon was truly "a child of the Seine." She had 
now exchanged the monastic quiet of Saint Louis's 
isle, her walks with Xante Angelique along its borders, 
for a magnificent spectacle from her northern window. 
At the close of a fair day her eyes embraced the vast 
curve of the celestial vault from the cool, bluish eastern 
sky far beyond the Pont au Change to the fires of the 
western heavens flaming behind the dark trees of the 
Cours la Reine, and outlining in blackest silhouette 
the peaked roofs and towering chimneys of the village 
of Chaillot. Here often, after an afternoon of writing 
or study, Manon leaned out to enjoy the enchanted 
hour of sunset; the noblest passages in her letters 
were written in its rosy glamour. Something of her 
sanity, her health of spirit and body, her deep love of 
nature, was owing to this constant contemplation of 
larger horizons than are accorded to most town- 
dwellers. Her early writings, long before she had read 
Rousseau, prove how sensitive were eye and heart to 
the beauties of sky and river, to changing lights and 
delicate gradations of color. Is it fantastic to believe 
that if, instead of a "magic casement opening on the 



54 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

foam/' Manon's only window had admitted the dim 
light of a courtyard or the echoing clamor of a dusky, 
narrow street, she would have lacked something of her 
high enthusiasm and serene poise ? Her books would 
have been all to her, nature and beauty less vital and 
significant. A volume, a theory of life, a system of 
philosophy, a creed seem small things, variable, un- 
substantial, read under the great plain of the sky, or 
beside the perpetual movement of a mighty stream. 
Manon was as fortunate in the possession of privacy 
as she was in the view from her window, for bourgeois 
life was generally huddled and gregarious. A single 
living-room, a single fire, and often a single light was 
the rule. The chimney-place was truly the domestic 
altar of the French household. President Grosley 
recalled how his father, when the cold drove him out 
of his own cabinet, continued his studies in jurispru- 
dence by the kitchen-fire, undisturbed by the yells 
of a pack of noisy children and the gabble of servants 
and nurses. Around the hearth of Marmontel's father 
were gathered his great-grandparents, a grandmother, 
three grandaunts, and a sister of the house-mother, 
as well as six children. Filial piety has seldom found 
fuller opportunity for exercise. The Phlipons and 
Besnards, however, were well-to-do folk, who pre- 
ferred living apart to crowding together under one 
roof-tree; so Manon's closet, filled with books and 
flowers, was her own kingdom. Here she spent most 
of her time reading, writing, and studying. " Cella 
continuata dulcescit" to the student as well as to the 
monk. "The mornings slip away somehow in reading 
and working. After dinner I go into my little study, 



RELIGIOUS DOUBTS 55 

overlooking the Seine; I take a pen, dream, think, 
and write." "My violin, my guitar, and my pen are 
three parts of my life," she wrote Sophie Cannet, who 
soon after Manon left the convent returned to Amiens. 

Letters to Sophie filled a third part of Manon's 
existence, one thinks in turning the pages of a long 
correspondence in which her girlhood is reflected like 
a spring landscape in a still lake. " Un ami est un second 
logis pour Vdmey^ Manon believed, and her fancies 
and thoughts constantly winged their way to this other 
nesting-place. For many years Manon found in 
Sophie a mother-confessor. "I am a woman, noth- 
ing human is alien to me," might have been the de- 
vice of this sympathetic recipient of varied con- 
fidences. Manon's letters were infinitely precious to 
her less expansive friend. The tiniest note was 
cherished like a relic. Few love-letters have been so 
reverently preserved. Marriage ended these effusions, 
and poor Friendship, shouldered aside by Love, and 
finally turned out-of-doors by Hymen, became mute. 
Roland disapproved of intimate relations between 
his wife and other women — he was a jealous god, and 
discouraged goddess-worship. "He was wrong," wrote 
Madame Roland, many years later. "Marriage is 
grave and solemn; if you take away from an affec- 
tionate woman the sweets of friendship with persons 
of her own sex, you deprive her heart of a necessary 
aliment, and you expose her to danger." 

These letters, given by Sophie's eldest son, the 
Chevalier de Gomiecourt, to Auguste Breuil, and pub- 
lished in 1 841, furnish a valuable commentary to the 
first part of the private Memoirs. They provide the 



56 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

"deadly parallel column" by which accuracy, if not 
veracity, may be tested. They present in a series of 
delicate vignettes the story of a girl's life in the Paris 
of Voltaire and Necker, of Crebillon fils and Lavoisier. 
They form a study of the efflorescence of what Hugo 
called **a soul of purple fire," and the expansion of a 
mind so penetrating and so active that it invests every 
object presented to it with a kind of luminous clearness 
and relief. Thoughts, emotions, experiences, are noted 
and analyzed, as they rise in mind or heart, or enter 
from without with the happenings of daily life. The 
irruption of novel ideas, the modifications of accepted 
theories, the flowering of sentiment are seized in their 
inception, captured on the wing, and sent like a votive 
offering of young doves to Sophie. For though the 
letters form a journal of the inner life of a girl from 
the age of sixteen to twenty-five, they are also acts 
of devotion to a friendship that is marvellously akin 
to love. The pages glow with loving terms: "/^ vais 
quitter la plume mais non ta chere image"; "Regois ce 
baiser defeu"; and (surely fresh from some old Latin's 
love-poem) "Adieu, divine, aie soin de toi pour nous." 
Intelligence is companioned by affection. Tenderness 
underlies the description of Systemes, accompanies a 
summary of Delolme's History of England, a criticism 
of Pope's optimism, or a lesson in physical geography. 
Every object the young enthusiast touches glows 
lambently, made living by the warmth of an imagina- 
tion as brilliant as it is healthy. 

All Manon's acquisitions are instantly shared with 
her friend. A description of every day's work and 
play is faithfully rendered "to my queen, to whom I 



RELIGIOUS DOUBTS 57 

must account for what is hers." A narrative of the 
events of the outer, as well as the reflections and ex- 
periences of the inner, life is set down that the friend 
in Amiens may have her part in Manon's daily exist- 
ence. Few lovers have been so assiduous — none so 
copious. Nor does the abundance of the material les- 
sen the vivacity of its manner. ^' Elle etait nee scribe ^^ 
pronounced Michelet. Her letters possess a quality 
which it is difficult to express; perhaps because in 
them the defects of the witty, artificial century find no 
place. These reflections and descriptions are free from 
the frivolity and the spiritual dryness that were per- 
haps the inevitable accompaniments of overrefinement 
and the spread of a positive philosophy. There is a 
delicate enjoyment, like breathing sweet air or tast- 
ing pure, cool water, in the perusal of these chronicles 
of an outwardly simple life. The good humor of per- 
fect health, the contentment born of simple habits 
and temperate pleasures, soften even the "violent 
delights" of new discoveries in books and humanity. 
The tranquillity of a studious existence, unfretted by 
material cares, and free from social obligations, rises 
like a faint fragrance from these records. The seclusion 
of the girl's life and her lack of social dissipation 
enabled her to give not only her time to study and 
reflection but her young vitality as well. It was her 
habit to read and write not only the greater part of 
the day but half the night. There was a certain quench- 
less force in her that seemed inexhaustible, a youthful 
elasticity that remained with her always, that lent 
her an "air of freshness and adolescence" even in her 
prime, and that grief and anxiety could not subdue. 



58 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

*' J'etMdie parce que j'ai hesoin d^Hudier comme de man' 
gery Study is her hygiene of the soul. 

It was material for thought that she sought, ob- 
jects to occupy an active intellect and a vivid imag- 
ination, not a. collection of antiquities, nor a set of showy 
acquirements for her mental furniture; as matter for 
reflection was her quest, she read, she did not "read 
up." Notes were taken, abstracts and extracts made 
of her daily reading, and the essence of it sent to 
Sophie, who, poor dear, had no time for books, as her 
empty hours were passed at cards, at routs, and in 
conferences with her dressmaker. The social life of 
a small but gay town left her no leisure for study, 
and Manon's letters were thus doubly dear to her. 

For some time the girls were one in thought, then 
the inevitable occurred, where one friend reads, ex- 
amines, and reflects, and the other does not. Through 
study and inquiry, Manon, the impassioned mystic, 
was growing into a reasonable and intelligent young 
woman. Not long after she left the convent she heard 
the whispers of religious doubt, and felt the necessity 
of rationalizing her faith (1772). 

The first dogma of her creed to which her heart as 
well as her reason refused assent was, of course, the 
damnation of all those who had not known or accepted 
it. Disbelief in infallibility followed the rejection of 
the doctrine of exclusive salvation. She was evidently 
deceived, or misunderstood some articles of her religion; 
it was therefore a duty to examine them all. "From 
the moment a Catholic has arrived at this point the 
Church may regard him as lost. What then remains 
that is true .^" Manon asked herself, and her reading, 



RELIGIOUS DOUBTS 59 

which had been miscellaneous for several years, was 
directed to an active and anxious search after truth. 
Hitherto her attention had been drawn to many sub- 
jects. She had fed on the books in the library of her 
uncle's vicar, where she was left to browse on Sundays 
and feast-days while her mother and Mademoiselle 
d'Hannaches played backgammon with the two priests. 
There was provender for the devout; the works of the 
Fathers of the Church, and the Lives of the Fathers 
of the Desert, Bossuet's Universal History, and the 
Letters of Saint Jerome. In the thick of the cowls 
shone the helmet of Mambrino, and Manon found the 
dear knight of La Mancha wedged between Jesuit 
scholars and holy hermits. 

The vicar's books devoured, Manon went to the 
lending libraries for fresh forage. There she found 
fare for all palates. She chose first translations of 
the historians of antiquity, followed them with Mon- 
tesquieu, Locke, and Burlamaqui, and continued rather 
frivolously with French plays. She had no plans for 
consecutive reading. She wished to know for the sake 
of knowledge, and to exercise a keen and active intel- 
ligence. She desired happiness like all healthy young 
creatures, and she sought it in the full development 
of her faculties. 'T know nothing comparable to the 
fulness of life, of peace, of contentment, of this happy 
time of innocence and study," she wrote many years 
afterwards. 

To breathe the air of Paris, electrical with intel- 
ligence, pollent with ideas; to love study, to possess 
books and leisure, to be in life's morning, free from 
cares and insistent duties; with the memory a fair 



6o MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

tablet, the brain unwearied, the mind not yet a palimp- 
sest of accumulated thoughts; while the bitter fruits 
of the Tree are still the golden apples of the Hesperides 
is surely to know pure delight. How could Manon 
escape happiness ? 

Desultory reading now converged towards a focal 
point. How much of that faith which had been at 
once a rule of life and her highest source of happiness 
would remain to her after such research and examina- 
tion as were in her power to give to it ^. It was with 
an unquiet mind and a heavy heart that the girl began 
the old torturing quest, "Given self, to find God." 
Manon was no smug, priggish doubter. Her affec- 
tions and her memories were intertwined with the 
forms and objects of her religion. To renounce it was 
to go out naked and alone into a dark, desolate place. 
Much of the poetry of her outwardly narrow life she 
owed to the ceremonies, the color and music and emo- 
tion made visible, of an elaborate ritual. She clung 
to the dear familiar forms as the newly made Chris- 
tian might to the beautiful household gods and the 
genial observances of pagan worship. And yet that 
persistent voice of reason would make itself heard, 
questioning and comparing, above the Latin prayers 
and the solemn chants. 

Manon carried her doubts to her confessor, who 
immediately equipped her with the works of the de- 
fenders of her wavering faith. She read, marked, and 
annotated these authorities. She made marginal com- 
ments in the books themselves which astonished her 
confessor, and which may still be read by the curious 
in such matters. She found the justification of her 



RELIGIOUS DOUBTS 6i 

incredulity and the replies to her queries in the perusal 
of these controversial works, however, for they sup- 
plied her with the titles of the books they endeavored 
to refute. Resolved to subject all the articles of her 
creed to the test of reason, Manon obtained the pro- 
hibited volumes. They offered the touchstone she 
Sought. Thus D'Holbach's Bon Sens, Maupertuis's 
Systeme de la Nature, Voltaire's Essai sur les Moeurs 
and Dictionnaire Philosophique. D'Argen's Lettres 
Juives, the De I'Esprit of Helvetius, the works of Di- 
derot, D'Alembert, and the Abbe Raynal were read, 
criticised, and analyzed. 

In her cell at Sainte Pelagie, long afterwards, Ma- 
dame Roland compressed into a few sentences the 
essence of several years of meditation and study, *'In 
the midst of doubts, uncertainties, and inquiries rela- 
tive to these great subjects, I concluded, without hesi- 
tation, that the unity of the individual, if I may thus 
express myself, the most complete harmony, that is 
to say, between his opinions and actions, was neces- 
sary to his personal happiness. Accordingly, we must 
examine carefully what is right, and when we have 
found it, practise it rigorously. There is a kind of 
justice to be observed to oneself even if one lived alone 
in the world. One should govern all his feelings and 
habits in order not to be enslaved by any one of them. 
A being is good in itself when all its parts concur to 
its preservation, its maintenance, or its perfection; 
this is not less true in the moral than in the physical 
world. A well-balanced organization, an equilibrium 
of humors constitute health; wholesome food and 



62 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

moderate exercise preserve it. The concord of our 
desires and the harmony of the passions form the moral 
constitution of which wisdom alone can secure the 
excellence and duration. These first principles are 
based on self-interest, and in this respect it may be 
truly said that virtue is only soundness of judgment 
applied to morals. But virtue, properly so called, is 
born from the relations of a being with his fellow 
beings; justice to ourselves is wisdom; justice to 
others is virtue. 

**In society all is relative; there is no independent 
happiness. We are obliged to sacrifice a part of what 
we might enjoy in order not to lose the whole, and to 
secure a portion against all attacks. Even here the 
balance is in favor of reason. However laborious may 
be the life of the honest, that of the vicious is more so. 
He who puts himself in opposition to the interests of 
the greatest number is seldom at peace. It is impos- 
sible for him to hide from himself that he is surrounded 
by enemies, or by those who are ready to become so, 
and such a situation is always painful, however splen- 
did it may appear. Add to these considerations the 
sublime instinct [of rectitude] which corruption may 
lead astray, but which no false philosophy can ever 
annihilate, which impels us to admire and love wisdom 
and generous actions as we do grandeur and beauty 
in nature and the arts — and we shall have the source 
of human virtue, independent of every religious sys- 
tem, of the mazes of metaphysics, and the impostures 
of priests. . . . The beautiful idea of a Divine Creator, 
whose providence watches over the world; the spir- 
itual nature of the soul, and, lastly, its immortality. 



1 



RELIGIOUS DOUBTS 63 

that consolation of persecuted and suffering virtue — 
are these nothing more than lovely and splendid il- 
lusions ? Yet what clouds envelop these difficult prob- 
lems ! What multiplied objections rise if we try to 
treat them with mathematical exactness ! But no, 
the human mind is not fitted ever to see them in the 
light of perfected evidence. What does it matter to 
the sensitive soul that it cannot prove them ? Is it 
not enough for it to feel them. . . . The atheist is 
not, in my eyes, a man of bad faith; I can live with 
him as well as — even better than — with the devotee, 
for he reasons more, but he is deficient in a certain 
sense. . . . He is cold before a ravishingly beauti- 
ful spectacle, and he hunts for a syllogism where I 
offer a thankgiving." 

Investigation, then, though it dispelled the super- 
stitions of the girl's religion, left its spirit and its pure 
and tender personal ideal untouched. Tomes of de- 
structive criticism only enlarged Manon's elevated 
conceptions of God and of duty. She was still in the 
age of faith compared to the modern seeker after 
things divine, for only duty remained to George Eliot, 
as she sorrowfully confessed to Frederick Myers. 

Manon, convinced of the reality of these fundamental 
beliefs, with her moral code firmly established on a 
rational basis, kept her scepticism to herself and her 
director. She daily attended mass with her mother, 
"for the edification of her neighbor," and she confessed 
to the priest to whom she had confided her loss of faith. 
She conformed outwardly, Hke a patriotic old pagan, 
who identified the practice of his national religion 
with his loyalty to his country. To have done other- 



64 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

wise would have deeply shocked and grieved her parents 
and scandalized her friends. Manon was no "come- 
outer," no Protestant. If the spiritual must be ma- 
terialized for the mass of mankind, there were no 
grander or lovelier forms than those of her own church. 
As with Manon freer thinking implied in its increased 
sense of individual responsibility strict rules of living, 
perhaps her religious life was even more intense than 
in her convent days. She held that those who cast 
aside conventional religious restraints were committed 
to the severest self-control in conduct lest it be sus- 
pected that they sought freedom of thought for license 
in behavior. 

" Une dme droite portee au scepticisme se sent obligee 
a une vertu exacte et severe. Sans la pratique de la plus 
grande justice^ elle craindroit de n avoir secoue le joug 
que par un desir coupahle de se livrer a ses penchants^ 
sans gene. Faire supple er les ceuvres a la foi, me par ait 
le seul moyen d'eviter les remords." (June 9, 1776.) The 
strictness of her moral code never relaxed. She dis- 
covered early in her researches that righteous living 
is not dependent on orthodox opinions of the nature 
of the Trinity. 

There was another reason for her outward conform- 
ity, a powerful one with a proud and sensitive girl. 
The ewe-lamb who deserted the fold was generally 
classed with the goats by a cynical public, whose judg- 
ment was often confirmed by the caprioles of the 
emancipated lamb. Naturally enough when an ethical 
code rests on a basis of theological teaching, it loses 
its authority when its foundation crumbles. "La 
religion est notre etiquette de sages se.'* "Religion is our 



RELIGIOUS DOUBTS 65 

label of virtue" in the eyes of the world, Manon 
thought, and the wise virgin was careful to keep her 
certificate of merit in evidence. 

Manon's scepticism, then, was a secret to every one 
except her director until she received a letter from 
Sophie confessing that her own faith was troubled. 
The tone of the age affected the most devout as climate 
affects the most robust. Manon, deeply touched and 
somewhat reproached by this confidence, so much 
greater than her own had been, opened her heart and 
mind at once to her friend. Her doubts and criticisms, 
inquiries and convictions, were described to Sophie. 
Manon's letters were always placed on her mother's 
work-table, that she might look them over before they 
were posted; she must therefore have known of her 
daughter's increasing unbelief. The discreet parent 
never mentioned the subject, however. Manon's reti- 
cence may have been an inheritance, or reading the 
letters may have bored Madame Phlipon. She com- 
bated Sophie's opinions, and was sometimes a little 
unreasonable in her censures of her friend's indepen- 
dence of spirit and lack of deference for authority. 
Still, this controversial correspondence (for Sophie's 
letters may be inferred from Manon's replies to them) 
denotes a high degree of intellectual and social culture 
and an amiable openness of mind hard to parallel in 
most religious discussions. Each girl is sincere, even 
impassioned, and desirous of convincing her friend, 
and yet their mutual affection remains undiminished 
by their radical differences. ^' Au milieu de tout cela 
il est hien doux de pouvoir se dire impunementy je ne 
pense pas comme toi, mais je ne t'en aime pas moins.^' 



66 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

These letters contain Manon's profession of faith. 
When a few weeks before her death, in the soHtude of 
her cell, she wrote the credo of her riper years, it was 
but a summary of her girlish convictions. 

** Enlarge your God," Diderot said to his followers, 
and long before man was emancipated, the idea of 
deity was freed from the fetters of creed, and also from 
the limitations of definition. Manon's conception 
of the Supreme Being pales and brightens with her 
studies and meditations. "It is only credulity that 
is always the same, because it no longer reasons on 
subjects that it has once decided to accept," she ex- 
plains, to justify her mutations. Sometimes hers was 
the God that Voltaire discovered at the end of a chain 
of argument, that moral necessity that should be in- 
vented if it did not already exist. Then the rather 
detached "Father of All" of Pope's "Universal Prayer" 
received her homage. Rousseau's JEltre Supremey who 
had inherited something of the tenderness of the Good 
Shepherd of her childhood's orisons, won her allegiance. 
For though justice seems to Manon the most godlike 
of attributes, it is the thought of the Divine Love that 
appeals irresistibly to her. 

On one page she assures Sophie that the existence 
of God is self-evident; the order and harmony of the 
universe bear witness to the operation of a Supreme 
Intelligence. A little later she confesses: "I believe 
a Being necessary, but I do not know what He is, and 
I do not try to define Him. It is impossible for men 
to have exact ideas. I refuse the definitions that are 
given me because they seem contradictory to me. We 
do not know enough about the essence of things to 



RELIGIOUS DOUBTS dy 

assign to matter all the properties which it is or is not 
susceptible of possessing. Spiritual substance seems 
to me either a confused assemblage of negations or 
only vague, undetermined notions. I know nothing 
about it and I do not complain; it is the destiny of 
my nature, which was not made to reason about things 
that I cannot understand. The science of living is 
the only one that is within my power, and it is in- 
dependent of chimerical speculations; examination of 
them has left me unaffected. 

"What an inconceivable being we have made of 
the Divinity ! Men have lent God their passions, and 
judge Him by themselves. Infinite wisdom united 
to supreme power is necessarily benevolent, it per- 
fects or it annihilates." It is only in the study that 
she doubts; when her heart speaks, she loves and 
prays as in her childhood: "V esprit a heau s^avancery 
il ne va jamais aussi loin que le cceury "Every time 
that I walk in quiet meditation with peace in my soul, 
through a smiling landscape whose every charm I 
feel, it is a delicious thought that I owe these blessings 
to a Divine Intelligence. I love and long to believe. 
It is only in my dusty study, poring over my books, 
or in the giddy crowds of the world, that sentiment 
withers away, and reason looms darkly behind clouds 
of doubt and the poisonous exhalations of unbelief." 

Beauty to Manon is the sacrament of heaven. Under 
the dome of the firmament, or in the vast aisles of the 
forest, she is filled with an ecstasy of joy and gratitude, 
akin in degree though not in kind to that of the saintly 
visionary. Leaning out of her lattice into the ineffable 
glories of the sunset, she wrote: "O Thou, whose exist- 



68 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

ence my reason almost denies, but whom my heart 
yearns for, and burns to adore, First Intelligence, 
Supreme Ordainer, all good and powerful God who 
I love to believe art the creator of everything that is 
grateful to me, receive my worship, and if Thou art 
but an illusion, be Thou mine forever." Was not this 
longing its own fulfilment ? Her petition was an- 
swered. The chimere divine remained with her when 
all her earthly illusions had vanished. '*Just God re- 
ceive me," she prayed before she went to death as to 
a triumph. 

If Manon's conceptions of the inconceivable fluc- 
tuated, her ideas of duty suffered no change. The 
humanitarian movement of the age found a vibrating 
response in her generous mind. Not only to love your 
neighbor but to serve him was the new gospel. Not 
new either, but a beautiful old one with a novel mo- 
tive power. To a Latin, society and the individuates 
relations to it were of primary importance. The stoics 
ceased to influence Manon because she could not follow 
counsels of perfection that isolated the individual and 
suppressed the aff'ections. "My passion, or my present 
illusion, if one may call it so, has for its object the gen- 
eral good. The vocation of man is sociability, his 
first duty is to be useful. In my eyes the chief and 
finest of virtues consists in the love of the public good, 
in that of the unfortunate, and in the wish to help 
them." 

Manon's benevolence was not limited to a mere 
wish to aid the unfortunate. She found ample exercise 
for beneficence near at hand, and her charities were 
her only extravagance. / There was always some one 



RELIGIOUS DOUBTS 69 

who needed her money more than she did, and her 
dress allowance generally clothed somebody else 
(January 13, 1776); poverty irked her only when it 
restricted her generosity. Occasionally she appealed 
to Sophie for help, which was always bountifully be- 
stowed. 

Two of her proteges were always with her. One 
was *'le gentilhomme malheureux," a M. de Chalms, an 
impoverished nobleman and his wife. These people, 
who were as accomplished as they were unfortunate, 
desired to open a school, and Manon borrowed of Sophie 
the money which they were obliged to deposit before 
doing so. A year or so afterwards, knowing that they 
were still embarrassed, Manon repaid it herself. ''La 
Petite Leveilly" the daughter of a boon companion 
of M. Phlipon, was cared for by Manon for several 
years. {Vide the Cannet Letters from October 31, 
I775> to May 29, 1778.) ''She is a poor little creature, 
very unhappy, whose lot is to weep and to work," 
Her father was idle and dissipated, and her guardian, 
a man of some position, offered to buy his daughter 
of him. Manon rescued the girl, who was hardly more 
than a child, and found her lodgings, clothes, and work. 
La Petite, who painted fans, could by toiling from five 
o'clock in the morning until midnight earn enough 
to keep alive. Manon, who mothered her, petted her 
occasionally, took her to the Luxemburg gardens, to 
church, and to visit her friends. She was so tender of 
the Petite's self-respect that she learned fan-painting 
of her that the child might not feel that the obliga- 
tion was all on one side. Manon objected to M. 
Phlipon's inviting her to the family dinner on New 



70 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

Year's day, because it seemed like advertising her 
own beneficence, "like exhibiting her in my livery." 
"Send her a message; she is as sensitive as we are," 
Manon wrote Sophie, who had given her money for 
the Petitis necessities. 

While always guarding the girl's dignity, Manon 
ventured to advise and warn her. "She has sworn 
to me, many times, with her hands in mine, that she 
will always be faithful to virtue . . . and if she should 
cease to be virtuous, I shall admire her for having long 
remained so." 

Doubting Manon encouraged her protegee's pious 
practices, for the sceptic was convinced "of the sweet- 
ness and strength of religious ideas to charm away 
the evils of life, while philosophy only lays upon us 
the yoke of inevitable necessity." (April 25, 1778.) 
The poor little Leveilly was in need of all the conso- 
lation her faith could bestow. She was dogged by 
misfortune. Her good-for-nothing father shared her 
tiny earnings, ill-treated her when she refused to help 
him, and prevented her from taking the situations 
that Manon and Sister Agathe found for her. Work 
failed, and in her absence the lock of her chamber door 
was forced and her small possessions stolen. The lot 
of une petite ouvriere en chamhre was as hard in the 
eighteenth century as it is in the twentieth, and after 
Manon left Paris the girl lost heart; she had no one 
to protect her against her father and her guardian. 
Manon finally was obliged to limit her admiration 
to the poor girl's past as she had promised herself 
she should do if it became impossible to esteem her 
present. Among the last words that Madame Roland 



RELIGIOUS DOUBTS 71 

wrote before her execution were a few brief lines of 
regret for her lost Petite. 

Desire of service, a new form of self-dedication to 
an ideal of sacrifice, had heightened Manon's interest 
in public affairs and widened her mental horizon. 
Even her benevolence was generalized: "Although 
the obscurity of my birth, name, and position seem to 
preclude me from taking any interest in the govern- 
ment, yet I feel that the common weal touches me in 
spite of it. My country is something to me, and the 
love I bear it is most unquestionable. How could it 
be otherwise, since nothing in the world is indifferent 
to me .? I am something of a cosmopolitan, and a love 
of humanity unites me to everything that breathes. 
A Carib interests me; the fate of a KafEr goes to my 
heart. Alexander wished for more worlds to conquer. 
I could wish for others to love." 

This latitude of mind proved as consoling as it was 
stimulating, and minimized the increasing personal 
privations of Manon's life. "I heard this evening of 
the resignation of M. Turgot. It vexed and stunned 
me. One of his financial measures has acted hurt- 
fully on my father's affairs, and therefore on mine 
also. But it is not by private interests that I judge 
him." (May 17, 1776.) Fine sentiments are surely 
of practical utility when they reconcile the taxpayer 
to a flattened purse. Let the egotist complain of his 
curtailed income ! Is there not solace for the larger- 
hearted, broader-minded in the thought: *'Quand on 
nest pas habitue a identifier son interet et sa gloire avec 
le Men et la splendeur du ghieral, on va toujours petite- 
ment, se recherchant soi-meme^ et perdant le but auquel 
on doit tendre " ? 



72 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

Not very novel to-day this view of public affairs, 
which is stuff of the conscience to many of us, but it 
is owing to the innovators of the Revolution that such 
ideas have now become usual, almost commonplace. 
It was this conviction that drove famished recruits 
against the veteran armies of Europe, and sent the 
Republic's ideals with her victories- on their triumphal 
march over the continent. 

Manon's preoccupation with general ideas did not 
crowd out a lively interest in herself, an interest that 
might have grown morbid if her intellectual curiosity 
had not been exercised on many objects. Le moi in- 
terieuTy though kept under close observation, was only 
one of her subjects of thought. It is rather surprising 
to discover in the notes of this little Parisienne, so 
long before Goethe, sentences like these: 

"The knowledge of ourselves is no doubt the most 
useful of the sciences. Everything tends to turn 
towards that object the desire to know which is born 
in us, a desire we try to satisfy by acquainting our- 
selves with the histories of all past nations. This is 
by no means a useless habit if we know how to avail 
ourselves of it. My views in reading are already very 
different from those I entertained a few years ago; 
for I am less anxious to know facts than men; in the 
history of nations and empires I look for the human 
heart, and I think that I discover it too. Man is the 
epitome of the universe; the revolutions in the world 
without are an image of those which take place in his 
own soul." 

The soul ! That was the only element possessed 
of absolute and ultimate value in the whole universe. 



RELIGIOUS DOUBTS 73 

Manon, like poor Malvolio, thought ''nobly of the 
soul." It stood for personality, for character, for con- 
science, and was identical with free will. Self-com- 
mand and self-study purified and strengthened it. 
"Let us endeavor to know ourselves; let us not be that 
factitious thing which can only exist by the help of 
others. Soyons nous!" Manon wrote, the social in- 
stinct momentarily in abeyance to the need of self- 
expression. But a mind developed by study, ripened 
by reflection, does not manifest itself in pure self- 
assertion. Manon's aim was not to express her per- 
sonality but to understand it. Her endeavor was to 
render her ego intelligible to herself, not audible to 
others. Spiritual as well as mental cultivation was in- 
cluded in her scheme of living. "She was prodigiously 
industrious in the economy of her life," said her ear- 
liest biographer, Dauban, and no one has said better. 
Naturally avid of admiration, her habitual self- 
scrutiny preserved her from the form of vanity pecuHar 
to her sex. A woman without a positive sense of value 
sets no store by herself per se. She tries to acquire 
worth in others' estimation by exciting their admira- 
tion, or at least attracting their attention. Self-respect 
is based on the consciousness of an innate sense of 
value, on the constancy and freedom of the character 
and the will — in a word, the personality. Self-respect, 
therefore, cannot be acquired through the considera- 
tion of others, no matter how admiring or worshipful 
their attitude may be. Women in the eighteenth cen- 
tury were generally not only in functional dependence 
on men, but were often moral parasites with no vigorous 
structural existence of their own. Manon, by sheer 



74 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

force of character and mental industry, unconsciously 
achieved a spiritual independence inestimably precious 
when she became the cynosure of a group of eloquent 
and brilliant young men. 



CHAPTER V 

FIRST SUITORS 

Meanwhile Manon had, instinctively following 
Lady Montagu's advice to studious ladies, concealed 
her acquirements as though they had been deformities. 
During these years of solitary thought and reading, 
she was leading the simple, wholesome life of the young 
girls of her class. She shared her parents' gayeties 
and contributed to them. These were often family 
festivities, birthdays and anniversaries where chil- 
dren were expected to entertain their elders. A sur- 
prise was always counted on at these parties. Some- 
times it was a copy of congratulatory verses, written 
out laboriously in the young poet's best calligraphy, 
or a comphment neatly engraved, and bordered with 
billing doves and beribboned wreaths. Occasionally 
Flora or Pomona in an eclectic classic costume would 
present flowers, or offer fruit to the company. Fre- 
quently there was more ambitious mumming, and a 
quartet of shepherds and shepherdesses of the Dres- 
den-china variety would make music, for every young 
person played at least one instrument "indifferent 
well," or a rustic ballet was danced by unnaturally 
tidy peasants who were apt to lose their wooden shoes. 
All France loved acting and masking. Opportunities 
were not lacking even among shopkeepers for the dis- 
play of "talents de societey" and Manon danced and 

75 



76 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

fiddled, and rhymed and engraved, to her heart's and 
her parents' content. 

There were also the public exhibitions of fine and 
industrial art, and the antiquities and curiosities that 
Paris has always offered her spoiled children. Holi- 
days came often, and the Phlipons observed them de- 
voutly. Public promenades, palace-gardens, and the 
noble forests that still encircle the city with a royal 
girdle were visited in turn. "'Where shall we go to- 
morrow if the weather be fine?' said my father on 
Saturday evenings in summer, looking at me with a 
smile. 'Shall we go to Saint Cloud? The fountains 
are to play; there will be a crowd of people.' 

"*Ah, papa, I should like it far better if you would 
go to Meudon.' " 

So to Meudon they went often — Manon in a simple, 
fresh muslin gown with a gauze veil and a nosegay 
for all ornament, and for baggage a poetry book. They 
embarked at Port Royal in a small boat which landed 
them on the shores of Belleville, then steep paths and 
a stiff climb led them to the Avenue of Meudon. The 
Phlipons strolled in the park, explored the forest, 
gathered spotted ferns and woodbine, watched the 
deer, and napped at noon on beds of leaves in the clear- 
ings. They dined with one of the Swiss foresters, and 
supped on warm milk in some rustic dairy. One day 
they made a discovery that charmed Manon and served 
to illustrate for her the pastoral idyls of her revered 
ancients. In an unfrequented part of the wood the 
little party came upon a pretty, snug cottage; two 
children were playing at the door, "who had none of 
those signs of poverty so common in the country," 



FIRST SUITORS 77 

Manon noted significantly. Their grandfather was 
at work in a well-kept kitchen-garden, was a robust 
and cheerful old man, who reminded the reader of Vir- 
gil of his rustic on the banks of the Galesus. If she 
had been familiar with Longus or Tatius, the square 
potager with its mingling of utile et duke, of vegetables 
and flowers, its central basin and shady arbor, would 
have recalled the gardens of Greek romances. 

The Phlipons dined al fresco under a honeysuckle 
on fresh eggs, vegetables, and salad, played with the 
children, chatted with the old man, and promised to 
return some day for a longer stay. Our true posses- 
sions are in our minds; Horace was not more content 
in the ownership of his "little Sabine farm" than 
Manon with this glimpse of rural life. They were 
good days, those passed in the forests of Meudon, 
Montmorenci, or Vincennes. They left bright memo- 
ries, illuminated pages rich with the gold of sunshine 
filtering through leaves, the green of deep verdure, 
and the brilliant flower-tints of gathered blossoms, in 
Madame Roland's records. 

The sense that Sainte-Beuve has delicately char- 
acterized as **/f sentiment du verf^ was instinctive in 
this town-bred girl. From her childhood, in her holi- 
day rambles in woods and fields, she had felt the mys- 
terious allurement of the great earth-mother. It was 
not alone the relaxation of nervous tension, nor the 
expansion of the senses, the elation of renewed vision, 
of mere delight in bodily functions, respiration, for 
instance, which are Nature's gifts to man when he 
returns to primitive conditions and lays his head on 
her breast, that Manon felt in her returns to Nature. 



78 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

It was exaltation, a swift tenderness, an upwelling 
of grateful adoration to the Author of Beaut}^ that 
dilated the heart of a girl. Alone in the deep glades 
of the forest while her parents slept, she sought to 
lighten her spirit, burdened with an excess of emotion, 
by seeking beyond all this visible loveliness a crea- 
tive and responsive intelligence to receive her homage. 
Naturally enough, the public promenades were less 
pleasing to a young devotee who was fast becoming 
a philosopher. Those coups de chapeau that Madame 
de Boismorel had predicted began to appear, accom- 
panied by glances that even the most modest of maidens 
could not fail to understand. Admiration and the 
expression of it is not stinted to pretty girls in Latin 
countries, and in the Jardin du Roi (now des Plantes), 
in the gardens of the Arsenal and the Luxembourg, 
they ran a gauntlet of appraising looks and approv- 
ing whispers. Sensitive and always desirous of pleas- 
ing, Manon returned from her walks in a flutter of 
excitement, but her good sense soon humbled her girlish 
vanity. Pride, too, that powerful factor in the shaping 
of her character and career, suggested that the praise 
of a crowd, composed of individuals who were prob- 
ably unworthy of regard, should be indifferent to a 
young person of serious views. In her own room she 
blushed as deeply for her silly agitation as she had at 
the flattering murmurs of those strange young men. 
How inept it was for a reasoning being to waste time 
in trying to attract the ignorant and frivolous. Those 
foolish little thrills of vanity, which she had felt under 
the rather insolent homage of glowing eyes, were un- 
worthy of one whp \yas called to noble duties and sweet 



FIRST SUITORS 79 

tasks. Curiously enough, the appearance of those 
coups de chapeau was synchronous with Manon's change 
of view in regard to her own destiny, her substitute of 
the domestic for the monastic ideal. Decline of faith 
in dogma had led (the girl, clear-headed as she was, 
and devoted to analysis, could hardly explain how) 
to a secularization of her aspirations. She now in the 
light of awakened reason dedicated herself anew to a 
holy estate — that of matrimony. 

It was indeed holy in Manon's fancy, "all made of 
faith and service, all adoration, duty, and observance." 
In her reflections on marriage Manon was so occupied 
with the obligations of the wife that she overlooked 
the duties of the wife's husband. He was only a 
misty figure as yet, but an awesome being girt with 
awful power, philosophic in his opinions, extremely 
learned, and very exacting. Nevertheless, Manon fully 
expected, by diligently cultivating her mind and sub- 
duing her temper, to become an unfailing source of 
felicity to this arbitrary lord, who would reward her 
virtues by giving her dear little children whom she 
could bring up according to the theories of Locke and 
Fenelon (she had not yet read Emile), and teach 
(blissful thought !) all the delightful things she was 
herself learning. Her mission was to fit herself for 
this career by diligent study instead of planning 
pretty gowns and bewitching caps for the subjugation 
of peripatetic males. Marriage, then, its sacrifices, 
its abnegations, and its great recompense, maternity, 
for the loss of liberty, and increase of care, she now 
decided was her true vocation. 

The nubile youths of her neighborhood were also 



8o MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

of her opinion, and a procession of suitors began, as 
many and varied as that of a princess in Perrault's 
fairy-tales. An only daughter, the sole heiress of an 
apparently prosperous engraver and of childless rela- 
tives with comfortable incomes, was, of course, a de- 
sirable parti. When the young person added to her 
expectations an arch, fresh face, all lilies and roses, 
smiles and dimples, a rounded, graceful figure, and a 
reputation for wit and cleverness, the levee en masse 
of the men of her quarter is easily accounted for. 
Manon experienced no personal elation, and found all 
this courtship quite the natural order of things. She 
observed philosophically that ''from the moment that 
a young girl reaches maturity a swarm of lovers hovers 
around her like bees about a newly opened flower." 
Among these bees were two poor grasshoppers: Mig- 
nard, Manon's violin master, a colossal, bearded Span- 
iard, whose name contrasted piquantly with his ap- 
pearance, and Mozon, her dancing teacher. The family 
butcher, in the splendors of a Sunday toilet, '^hel 
habit noir et fine dentelle,'' laid his heart and his fifty 
thousand ecus at her feet. Doctor, lawyer, merchant, 
chief, set up their candidatures, one after another 
or several at a time. Owing to the gradual infiltration 
of art through all classes of society, its practitioners 
were social hybrids. They touched the people with 
one hand, the aristocracy and the court with the other. 
Gatien Phlipon's daughter, with a handsome dowry, 
might, through marriage, enter a higher circle, that 
of the De Boismorels, for instance, for though an emi- 
nent scientist, a painter of distinction, a celebrated 
writer might not have the grandes entrees^ a side-door 




TERMINAL BUST CALLED PORTRAIT OF MADAME ROLAND 

Sculptured by Chinard and now in the Edmond Aynard Collection at Lyons 



FIRST SUITORS 8i 

was open to them into the great world. But it was not 
this consideration that influenced Manon in her un- 
hesitating rejection of tradesmen. She had an ideal, 
a rather stern and austere ideal for an enthusiastic 
and affectionate girl. The lover of her choice must 
be a philosopher. At fourteen she had admired a man 
of the world; at sixteen a wit; but at eighteen her taste 
was formed, and she never afterwards wavered from 
her preference for a philosopher. 

Commerce Manon would have none of; "it was 
incompatible with delicate sentiments and elevated 
ideas." The rich jeweller or cloth-dealer was as 
small-minded as the petty mercer. In greed and ruse 
and obsequiousness one equalled the other. M. 
Phlipon was pained to hear such opinions; he had 
mildly approved his daughter's prompt rejection of 
small or poor tradesmen, but a master jeweller with a 
fine shop and aristocratic customers — pray what would 
suit her t ''Only a man to whom I can communicate 
my thoughts, and who shares my feelings," replied 
the idealist. "And such a man is not to be found among 
merchants ?" queried the disappointed parent. 

*^ TeneZy Papa: I have observed too often that suc- 
cess in trade depends on selling dear what one has 
bought cheap, by a good deal of lying, and oppression 
of the poor working man. Never could I countenance 
such practices, and never could I respect the man who 
from morning until night devotes his time to them. 
I wish to be a good wife, and how could I be faithful 
to a man who had no place in my esteem, even ad- 
mitting the possibility of my marrying such a one .? 
To me it seems that selling diamonds and selling pastry 



82 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

are very much the same thing, except that the latter 
has a fixed price, requires less deceit, but soils the hands 
more. I do not like one better than the other." 

"Do you believe then that there are no honest people 
in trade ?" 

"I will not say that absolutely, but I am persuaded 
that there are hardly any; and let them be ever so 
honest, they have not what I require in a husband." 

''You are difficult to please. Supposing you do not 
find your ideal ?" 

"Then I will die an old maid." 

"That may be a harder fate than you imagine. Be- 
sides, you will have time enough to think it over. But 
remember, ennui will come some day, the crowd will 
have gone, and you know the fable." 

"Oh, I will revenge myself on the injustice that 
denies me happiness by taking pains to deserve it." 

"Ah ! there you are in the clouds. It may be pleasant 
to soar to such heights but difficult, I fear, to remain 
there. Remember, too, that I should like to have 
grandchildren before I am too old." 

Poor M. Phlipon ! He was puzzled and annoyed. 
Here then was the sad result of too much reading 
and reflection. Plutarch was an evil counsellor for 
a fille a marier, and a course of ethical philosophy 
was but a poor preparation for practical life. The 
engraver, in spite of his opposition, was a singularly 
indulgent father, he never attempted to use his author- 
ity in forcing a favorable decision, and Manon was 
allowed to write refusal after refusal. M. Phlipon 
at first derived an attenuated pleasure from copying 
and signing these elegant compositions, but as time 



FIRST SUITORS 83 

went on and his daughter continued to read, make 
music, and write to Sophie, with apparently no thought 
of the morrow of celibacy, his patience wore thin. 
Even Mama PhHpon, who had with a tact and for- 
bearance truly exceptional in a managing French 
mother, refrained from giving advice or reproof, was 
impelled to remonstrate with her exacting daughter. 
Her own health had been failing for some time, her 
husband had become less industrious, more fond of 
pleasure in growing older, and she was doubly desirous 
of seeing her only child happy in a home of her own. 
Manon's childish reverence for her mother had deep- 
ened with time. She saw that the harmony of the 
little household, the peace that may survive happiness, 
which had enveloped her own young life like a balmy 
atmosphere, was entirely owing to her mother. The 
girl noticed, too, with a weight at her heart, her father's 
frequent absences from home, his diminishing custom, 
his neglect of his workmen, and the falling off of his 
own work. She could not fail to perceive that while 
his eye and hand lost their sureness and steadiness, his 
irritability and dictatorial humor increased. The se- 
ductions of the tavern and the lottery were naturally 
more powerful than the sober charm of an evening at 
home with madame reading Delolme's English His- 
tory aloud, while Manon knotted fringe or mended 
napkins. A family party of old relatives playing pi- 
quet for gros sous naturally seemed insipid to a man 
familiar with the fiercer delights of a gaming-table. 
Madame PhHpon's gentle remonstrances were laughed 
at, or met with real or assumed anger. When she failed 
to change her husband's actions or opinions, she ap- 



84 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

peared to abandon her own views and silently con- 
sumed her worries and forebodings. M. Phlipon still 
loved his wife and daughter tenderly, but he loved 
other things also, things which they could not appre- 
ciate, which, indeed, he would have been much cha- 
grined to have them appreciate. Yet the narrowness 
of their comprehension rasped him, and a sense of 
their blind injustice in desiring to deprive him of what 
they could not enjoy kept him in a continual state of 
smothered exasperation. Manon was more aggres- 
sively irritating than his self-efFacing wife. She had 
constituted herself her mother's watch-dog, and would 
not suffer her to be teased or worried. She also often 
interfered with her father's plans for private recrea- 
tion by proposing walks and excursions with him 
which were difficult to avoid. Even when he man- 
aged by shortening the promenade or the visit to es- 
cape, his own diversions were naturally curtailed. 
Sometimes when after saying before supper that he 
would run out for a moment only, he returned home 
very late, he found his womankind sitting up for him, 
red-eyed and anxious. Occasionally Manon was in- 
considerate enough to mention how distressed they had 
been by his absence, and did not consider a pleasantry, 
or a sulky and silent retreat, an adequate apology or 
explanation. 

When left alone again, the women would weep to- 
gether, but they never discussed his faults. "For her 
sake," wrote Madame Roland of her mother, "I would 
combat even her husband, but afterwards this hus- 
band became my father, of whom neither of us ever 
spoke but in praise." No outsider would have seen 



FIRST SUITORS 85 

that happiness, that shyest and fleetest of mortal visi- 
tants, had flown from the little household, but every 
outsider of the Phlipons' practical-minded social circle 
would have sympathized with madame's desire to see 
her daughter settled in life. 

One day she, with unusual earnestness, pressed the 
suit of a young jeweller, who was the latest aspirant. 
To a list of his moral qualities and his worldly pos- 
sessions she added: "He is acquainted with your sin- 
gular way of thinking, professes great esteem for you, 
will be proud to follow your advice, and has already 
said that he has no objection to his wife becoming 
the nurse of his children. You will rule him." 

"But, mama, I don't want a man that I can rule. 
He would be like a grown-up child." 

"You are certainly an odd girl, for you don't want 
a master either." 

"Let us understand each other, dear mama. I 
would not at all wish a man to dictate to me, for he 
would only teach me to resist, nor should I wish to 
order my husband about. If I am not much mistaken, 
these tall, bearded creatures seldom fail to feel that 
they are the stronger sex. Now the good man who 
should think proper to remind me of this superiority 
would provoke me; and I should blush for him, on 
the contrary, if he allowed me to rule." 

"I understand. You prefer to rule a man who while 
he beheves he is having his own way is obeying you," 
retorted mama, making a fairly successful eflPort to 
define the black swan of her daughter's theories. 

"Not exactly that. I hate servitude, but I am not 
made to rule; it would be a burden to me. My reason 



86 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

finds enough to do in governing myself. I would win 
the tenderness of some one worthy of my esteem; one 
whom I could honor myself by obeying; who, guided 
by reason and affection, would find his own happiness 
in promoting mine." 

"Happiness, my child, is not always the result of 
the perfect congeniality that you imagine. ... A 
good and worthy man offers you his hand; you are 
over twenty, and can no longer expect as many lovers 
as you have had in the last five years. . . . Do not 
reject a husband who has not, it is true, the delicacy 
to which you aifix such value (a very rare quality even 
among those who pretend to it), but who will love you 
tenderly, and with whom you may be happy." 

"Yes, dear mama," Manon exclaimed with a deep 
sigh, "happy as you are." 

Madame Phlipon started, grew silent, and never 
again pleaded for a mariage de raison. 

Manon enjoyed unusual liberty in her choice of a 
husband, but in general the young girl of the petite 
bourgeoisie was allowed to consult her own inclinations 
far more freely than was the noble demoiselle. It was 
an arduous life, dignified by labor, sobered by respon- 
sibility, that the bourgeoise faced in marriage, which 
to her was a compact instead of an emancipation. It 
bestowed few rights and many duties. It closed the 
door upon social pleasures, instead of opening it wide. 
In the married life of the Third Estate the husband 
was to be reckoned with. He had not abdicated his 
authority as had the patrician, and left the command 
of the household to his wife. He still occupied the 
dominant position of the primitive male. He disposed 



FIRST SUITORS 87 

not only of his wife's happiness but of her money as 
well. She had not a possession or a pleasure of which 
he might not deprive her. Not only her welfare but 
that of her children was in his hands. Hence the im- 
portance of wisely choosing such an absolute monarch. 
Husband and wife lived very closely together in the 
bourgeoisie^ and marriage was without mitigating cir- 
cumstances. It lacked the larger means, the ampler 
quarters, and the individual liberty that padded the 
conjugal yoke of the higher classes. It was not an 
association of two fortunes and two indifferences, but 
an indissoluble union of interests, if not of affections. 
Much was required of the wife. To her, duty was 
something more than a word. In an age of brilliant, 
phosphorescent corruption, of witty mockery of all 
things, the fireside of the Third Estate was the sanc- 
tuary of the household virtues and the domestic pieties, 
and the priestess of that hearth-fire was the hourgeoise. 
Habituated to self-sacrifice, and inured to labor, she 
looked at life with a certain austerity. The right to 
happiness that her contemporaries believed in, and 
preached so ardently, she did not quite accept, and 
substituted for it the right to make others happy. 
She possessed the dignity of one who asks little, who 
renounces without complaint — a dignity equal to the 
unconscious majesty of the noble lady to whom all 
was accorded. Without the character and virtues of 
the bourgeoisie, the Revolution would have been but 
a revolt. From these quiet homes issued the soldiers 
of the Republic. By the daily abnegations of these 
modest households the servants of the new state had 
been trained in habits of self-command, of industry 



88 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

and frugality. From these obscure treasures of moral 
energy immense reserves of fortitude and tenacity 
were drawn for the service of the fatherland. It was 
the moral vigor and the homely virtues of the bour- 
geoisie that preserved France during the convulsions 
of the Terror, and upheld the national honor when 
the artificial structure of her brilliant and superficial 
society crumbled away. 

A keen sense of these responsibilities was naturally 
felt by a stern young moralist like Manon, who in 
her mother had always before her a very model of 
wifely conduct. Not that Madame Phlipon was a 
Patient Griselda. Indeed, no Frenchwoman, that es- 
sentially sensible and reasonable being, could ever 
attain such a heroic height of insensibility as that 
Italian paragon of wives, who allowed her children 
to be carried off to be murdered without an expostula- 
tion. Long-suffering and high-minded as was her 
mother, Manon soon perceived that the moral in- 
equality between her parents made for unhappiness, 
and, resolute to escape shipwreck on that particular 
rock, continued to refuse mediocrity even when it 
was golden. 

''Mere force of intellect was not a sufficient quali- 
fication in a husband unless there were also superiority 
of judgment and those indefinable but palpable quali- 
ties of soul the lack of which nothing can supply." 
A philosopher, who was also a man of sentiment and 
a scholar, remained Manon's ideal — no matter how 
aged and damaged, how harsh-featured or ill-favored he 
might be. The beauties of mind, the charms of char- 
acter alone, were sought by this young enthusiast. 




MARIE MARGUKRITt: BIMONT— MOTHER OF MADAME ROLAND 

Pastel by Latour, in the Museum of Lyons 



FIRST SUITORS 89 

She would have considered Romeo a love-sick boy, 
Lovelace a stereotyped lady-killer, as tiresome as he 
was impudent, and the Chevalier Faublas she would 
have laughed at — before she boxed his ears. The man 
of her heart, or, more truly, of her fancy, was a less re- 
signed Marcus Aurelius, or a more energetic Vicar of 
Wakefield. To her notion, even when she had ceased, 
as a good Cartesian, to deify the intellect, a lover, like 
a man, to be worthy of his name, should think. Think- 
ing, the act of it (one not so easy to perform, by the 
way) alone opened the portals of the mind to divine 
messengers, to truth and justice. From straight think- 
ing sprang righteous action (Manon did not take 
antinomianism into account); impartiahty, considera- 
tion for the rights of others, respect for their opinions 
through comprehension of differing standards and 
points of view — in fine, a mental attitude, " avec laquelle 
une femme qui pense pouvait vivre." 

Alas ! in an age of such general diffusion of intel- 
ligence, why was there, in the Phlipons' social circle 
at least, such a dearth of philosophers — under sixty 
and unappropriated ? Were the fruits of wisdom 
ripened solely by a declining sun ? Or gathered only 
in the shadow of oncoming night ? 

"When miracles are expected, they happen," said 
a devout friend of mine, lamenting the sterilizing effect 
of general scepticism. Manon searching with her 
little lantern of enthusiasm for a philosopher was fated 
to find one. Intellect is inimical to beauty, as it de- 
stroys that balance in the distribution of vital force 
that makes for comeliness; naturally enough, Manon's 
sage was small, plain, and insignificant. The lady of 



90 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

Toboso was but an uncouth country wench to eyes 
untouched by the fire divine. Madame Roland's un- 
attractive portrait of Pahin de la Blancherie, drawn 
years afterwards, is very different from the contem- 
porary sketches from life that she sent to Sophie. Her 
imagination was kindled by the apparent delicacy 
and respectful regard of an ambitious young man of 
letters, with whom she had so much more in common 
than with the goldsmith of the Pont Neuf or the rich 
silk merchant. Manon met D. L. B., as she calls him 
in her letters to her confidante, at Madame L'Epine's 
concerts. He had already prepared himself for the 
bar, travelled in America, and written a book; he 
had studied the philosophers, knew his Rousseau by 
heart, and wrote verses. This was enough, and more 
than enough, to attract Manon, and she tells Sophie 
of her father's rejection of D. L. B.'s suit, which soon 
followed, with a touch of real though resigned regret. 
**He seemed to me to have a good heart, much love 
for literature and science, art and knowledge. In fact, 
if he had an established position, were older, possessed 
a cooler head, a little more solidity, he would not have 
displeased me. Now he has gone and doubtless thinks 
as little of me as I do about him.*' 

It was La Blancherie's lack of an established posi- 
tion that obliged M. Phlipon to decline his offer rather 
reluctantly. "I wish he were less of a gentleman, and 
had an income of a few more thousand crowns," papa 
admitted to his daughter. "Let him buy a place in 
the magistracy or open a law office firsts and then think 
about marriage." Manon did not find D. L. B. less 
interesting because he had been attracted by her, and 



FIRST SUITORS 91 

had privately decided to "study" him more closely, 
when he was called away to Orleans, and remained 
there for two years. 

On his return (October 31, 1775) he found Manon 
lonely, troubled, and depressed. Her mother had 
died in June, and her father's idleness and dissipation 
had increased since she had last seen ** the man of Or- 
leans," as she called La Blancherie in her letters. She 
was alone when he reappeared, pale and worn, appar- 
ently by care and anxiety. His cordial greeting, his 
undisguised joy at seeing her again, and his quick sym- 
pathy touched the bereaved girl's heart. At first their 
conversation was "of few words and many sighs"; 
later D. L. B. asked for the details of her mother's ill- 
ness and death, and Manon derived a pensive pleasure 
from living her sorrows over again with a friend who 
mourned with her. A little rainbow must have shone 
in the midst of their tears when she confided to him 
that she had spoken of him with her mother on their 
last day together under the honeysuckles at Meudon. 
At this moment M. Phlipon with a friend broke in 
upon the tete-a-tete. D. L. B., still weeping, fell upon 
his neck, and there followed a moment of general at- 
tendrissement that Greuze might have painted or Rous- 
seau described. 

When they had dried their tears, D. L. B. adroitly 
profited by an instant when the elders were occupied 
to confess that he too had lost his mother, though not 
by death, through differences of opinion, and that his 
book was published. Indeed, he left the corrected 
proofs of it for her to read later in secret and in haste, 
for the Orleans printer was importunate. Manon 



92 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

discovered in this work her own principles, her whole 
soul. **I do not dare to judge this young man; he re- 
sembles me too closely. I can only say of him what 
I said to M. Greuze about his picture: 'If I did not love 
virtue already, this would give me the taste for it.' " 
"Oh, Rousseau, Rousseau, it was all thy fault!" 
Manon had been rereading La Nouvelle Heloise; her 
fancy was fired by its glowing pictures of mutual love 
and sacrifice; unconsciously she was looking for a Saint- 
Prieux as well as a philosopher, and D. L. B., with his 
literary taste and knowledge, and his evident admira- 
tion of and sympathy with her, filled the role fairly 
well. The man who sorrows with a woman is far more 
dangerous than he who laughs with her. Manon was 
evidently disposed to play Julie, but a Julie who was 
strong and pure. She who had avoided reading tragedy 
because its fictitious woes affected her too deeply, and 
disturbed the philosophic calm she sought, who had 
found in the study of geometry and physics fetters for 
a roving fancy which strained towards the blue coun- 
try of romance and sentiment, she at last let herself 
go — on paper, and to Sophie. "Never was such 
prompt disemburdening." She was so proud of her 
emotions, so convinced of their purity and elevation, 
that she delighted in indulging and describing them, 
and she unhesitatingly ascribes to D. L. B. all her own 
delicacy and disinterestedness. Crystallization had 
been almost instantaneous; crystallization, as Sten- 
dhal called it, and no one has invented a happier term 
for that mysterious operation by which the imagina- 
tion, stimulated by love, transforms the ordinary mor- 
tal into a hero or a genius as the dead bough dropped 



FIRST SUITORS 93 

into the alum-mines at Salzburg is changed to a fairy- 
wand of brilliants. 

Meanwhile La Blancherie, who though not a 
withered branch was a forced fruit of the tree of knowl- 
edge, called again and again, bringing books to lend 
Manon. Papa Phlipon, who was not deceived by this 
innocent and venerable subterfuge, finally returned 
the last loan himself, dryly remarking that his daughter 
already had books enough to occupy and amuse her. 
D. L. B., however, only appeared flattered by this 
visit, and soon returned it. Papa, whose sole idea of 
his duty to his child was to mount guard over her, 
again stated his objections to Pahin's assiduity, and 
his intention to ask him to discontinue his calls, Manon 
assenting with apparent docility and inward despair. 
Mignonne, the lively little maid, who adored her mis- 
tress, and consequently loved every one who admired 
her, suggested in true soubrette fashion that she should 
soften the blow to D. L. B. 

"When I see him out, mademoiselle, I will warn 
him to come less often." Mademoiselle was but too 
pleased with this gentle envoy. But unfortunately 
it is only in comedies that the maid can quite success- 
fully double the mistress's role. Mignonne bungled 
her message and told D. L. B. that it was mademoiselle 
herself who begged him to cease visiting her. At which 
D. L. B., "pale as death," promised to respect her 
wishes. Of course Manon had counted on Mignonne's 
giving this advice as coming from herself (Mignonne) 
spontaneously. Alas, for the indirect method ! Manon 
went supperless to her room and poured out her lamen- 
tations to the receptive Sophie (November 18, 1775). 



94 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

"My dear, you cannot imagine how much I have suf- 
fered since this accursed instant. What will he think 
of me ? It is despairing to think of! How far beneath 
the rectitude we both profess and the delicacy which 
has won his esteem is this act of mine, having him 
spoken to secretly by a servant ! But he will see the 
motive that made me act; this motive will serve as 
my excuse. He will understand that my love tried 
to preserve for him the right to continue to come here 
by warning him to come seldom. . . . Perhaps he 
will think that I am playing with him — but no, I am 
too well known to him for him to be so atrociously 
unjust to me; his heart answers to him for mine. Mean- 
time I have sent him away. . . . He knows that my 
father does not look kindly upon him, and it is through 
me that he learns it. He will come back perhaps, but 
trembling and disconcerted, instead of which he en- 
joyed such a sweet confidence. This confidence was 
noble, it was founded on the purity of our sentiments. 
Never have we said that we loved each other, but our 
eyes have told each other so a thousand times in the 
presence of my father, in that expressive language 
w^hich we deny ourselves when we are alone. Per- 
haps the warning he has received has dangerously 
affected his health; he had begun to improve since 
his return to Paris. ... I am wounding a heart whose 
happiness I would buy at the price of my own. If 
my imprudent step cures him of his love I shall only 
have to weep for myself; he will be tranquil. . . . 
Was I not forced to warn him ? My father would 
have soon obliged him to discontinue his visits by his 
manner of receiving them. Such an order coming 



FIRST SUITORS 95 

from any one but myself would have been too painful 
for him. Seeing him only occasionally my father will 
see him willingly; he is really fond of him after all. 
. . . He lacks only a fortune. O, Heavens ! How 
I suffer. Why should I fear to let my father suspect 
the existence of a sentiment that I confess without 
blushing to God." Manon desires to write to D. L. B. 
to explain the hard necessity she is under, to let him 
know that it is her father, not herself, who finds his 
visits importunate. "A thousand times I was ready 
to take my pen, a thousand times I hesitated. I was 
not restrained by the fear that prudence suggests under 
such circumstances; I have confidence in him, a con- 
fidence which I believe his principles justify, and I am 
proud of his virtues, but / respected my image in his 
heart. I feared to take from it something of its noble 
beauty. My first step can be in some sense reconciled 
with my duty, since it sends D. L. B. away from me, 
but he might disapprove of my action in writing to 
him. ... I count on time, on time that devours all 
things; it alone can perhaps restore to me the calm- 
ness that I have lost. . . . Adieu, then, my friend, my 
refuge and my stay, adieu." 

It is only in the springtime of life that one is happy 
enough to be so unhappy. Three weeks later Manon 
writes (December 5, 1775): "The violent emotion 
that I described to you has gradually calmed down; 
this benefit is the result of the step that caused it. I 
have gathered the fruit of that cruel order that made 
me shed so many tears. But if tranquillity has re- 
turned to me, my love has not left me, only this senti- 
ment has become so naturalized in my heart that it 



96 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

causes no more trouble there than does fihal love; it 
is a deep river that has hollowed out its bed and flows 
silently. I am happy and I love; I unite these two 
opposed feelings with an ease which I could not imagine 
myself possessing. Submitting to the laws of a neces- 
sity which parts us, I find that it does not separate us, 
and that is enough. *He loves me,' I say to myself, 
*he is working to deserve me.' We seek reciprocally 
to please each other by becoming better, and in this 
sweet emulation our virtues thrive and hope remains 
with us. If he finds a good act to perform, I am sure 
that he brings to the doing of it more ardor in think- 
ing that it is the sweetest and the only homage he can 
offer me. On my side I find my being doubled. If 
it becomes necessary to make any sacrifices of any 
kind, I shall have more strength than ever. I am more 
severe to myself and I should forgive myself less easily 
for the slightest weakness; it seems as though there 
would be another witness to it, and added reproaches 
for it. I am no longer anxious, nor agitated, as you 
feared I would be; inquietude and remorse are strangers 
to me. I enjoy the advantage of a cceur fixe. I am 
more gay and more free in society. I seek nothing 
there. I know that after the first shock D. L. B. is 
himself again and certainly acts as I do. I judge him 
by my heart; nothing resembles him more. We do 
not see each other, but we know that we love each 
other without ever having told each other so." 

Meanwhile the evicted lover had given no sign. 
He was evidently pursuing his career of virtue and 
self-sacrifice in silence. Manon took a good deal for 
granted; the crystals were forming fast on the bough. 



FIRST SUITORS 97 

Foolish M. Phlipon ! Would you teach a generous 
and imaginative young enthusiast to love, separate 
her from the man she fancies. Seen too near, he would 
himself often disenchant her. The mediocre lover 
has a permanent rival in the ideal which every high- 
minded girl carries in her heart, and which is at once 
a touchstone and a tahsman. In D. L. B.'s case, ab- 
sence, pity, loneliness, and imagination, which in Ma- 
non always masked her preferences as admirations, 
were at work, transforming an able but rather flighty 
young opportunist into a moral hero, and a lofty- 
souled lover. 

But Manon was not only imaginative and senti- 
mental, she was intelligent, and she found in her mind 
a corrective and a cure for the warmth of her imagina- 
tion and her lack of social experience. // she had 
not been in an unwonted melting mood when D. L. B. 
returned, if he had not brought with him the tender 
souvenir of the mother who had known and liked him, 
if M. Phlipon had not frowned upon him, and if she 
had seen him more often, Manon's coup de foudre 
would have been but a slight shock, and she would 
have missed a valuable emotional experience. As it 
was, with all the elements of a romance, the cruel 
father, the complaisant maid, the indigent, unselfish, 
and chivalrous lover, how could a bereaved and lonely 
girl resist the situation ? She lent herself to it with 
hearty good-will; she took D. L. B. on faith, and his 
virtues for granted, as trustingly as any little milliner 
in her quarter would have done, who had never dis- 
ciplined her mind with algebra, or skipped the love- 
scenes in tragedies. 



98 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

The original dry stick had utterly disappeared under 
a gleaming, dazzling mass of crystals. She made little 
daily mental offerings to D. L. B.'s enshrined image, 
as her dear Saint Francis de Sales had recommended 
to the devout lover of God. She gathered spiritual 
nosegays for him of sweet thoughts and aspirations. 
She bade Sophie keep her letters, so that one day, 
perhaps (oh, transport!), they might read them to- 
gether; Manon's charmed fancy could picture no 
closer intimacy of the heart. She had the advantage 
of organizing and presenting and managing her drama 
of sentiment quite alone, entirely to her taste, and 
of speaking both parts in the love-dialogue. She felt 
and wrote for D. L. B., and supplied him with lofty 
aims and tender thoughts. The real D. L. B. had 
obeyed her literally, and was making his visits rare, 
indeed; so Manon had a freer stage for manoeuvring her 
own D. L. B. — a kind of Grandison-Cato, brain-born, 
and fancy-nourished, undisturbed by the claims and 
contradictions of an insistent, human, mascuHne per- 
sonality, which would have fitted very ill into the heroic 
part provided for him. 

There were times, however, when her affection waned 
a little even for this segment of perfection. Always 
frank to excess, she confesses as much to Sophie. 
"When I am fairly busy with science or study, good- 
by to love; my cheerfulness, my strength, my ac- 
tivity return to me, but a little letting myself go — if 
a certain visit — my heart goes pitapat, and my im- 
agination torments me. When I am on philosophical 
heights, I find D. L. B. rather small, but turn the 
glass the other way, and I am mad again." Still she 



FIRST SUITORS 99 

had intervals of lucidity in which to read the Abbe 
Raynal and to write long extracts from an excellent 
compte rendu of his Histoire Philosophique (the livre 
de chevet of Charlotte Corday), in which she notes "C^ 
livre est propre a hater la revolution qui s'opere dans 
les esprits'' (a good prophecy before the event), to 
give a little dinner and to make verses with Le Sage. 
Then after nearly a month D. L, B. reappeared, and 
adieu raison — vive la folie! D. L. B. was pale, 
thinner, more wan than before — he could not sleep, 
could not regain his health. Anxiety, grief, and emo- 
tion were wearing on him; he was sadly changed, and 
Manon's tumultuous heart told her why. For before 
he received that fatal order from stupid Mignonne, he 
was improving — ^was almost himself again, and now 
he might be going to die. What could be done ^ 
Tiresome Cousin Trude was calling at the same time, 
and a comforting word in private to D. L. B. was 
out of the question. The formal visit was soon in- 
terrupted by the return of M. Phlipon. D. L. B. 
rose, saluted him, and took leave, broken-hearted. 
Only Manon understood the cause of his sadness, and 
she was obliged to appear gay. "He does not know 
what he makes me feel," she wails to Sophie this 
same afternoon; "my apparent serenity doubles his 
tortures. ... A single word from my lips can call 
him back to hfe, to health. I believe it, I feel it, 
and why should I not speak .^ He keeps silence, and 
in doing so only interests me the more, because in 
acting thus he shows himself true to his principles, 
and ever worthy of my esteem." 

Manon, all her scruples of delicacy, all her rigid 



loo MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

maiden pride swept away by a rising flood of tender- 
ness, writes to D. L. B. She has ceased to care about 
any possible tarnishing of that immensely proper image 
of herself in his breast, and is possessed by one in- 
tolerable conviction: that the man she loves is suffer- 
ing, and that she is the cause of his pain; a conviction 
that had led generous natures into far greater folly 
than Manon's innocent imprudence. This letter, of 
which no copy remains, was to assure D. L. B. of her 
eternal friendship and unalterable respect, and to 
explain that it is papa, and not herself, who desires 
him to space his visits. Sophie is besought to receive 
this letter, to read it, judge of it, and if she considers 
it convenahle, to send it to La Blancherie. In any case 
she is not to burn it. He will see it later, perhaps ! "(7, 
Sophie, Sophie, mon amie ! sans toi je suis perdue; je 
suis dans la crise la plus violente; dans le combat le 
plus cruel avec moi-meme; je nai de force que pour 
me Jeter dans les bras de Vamitie. (9, Dieul que je 
souffre ! " 

The arms of friendship were evidently open, the 
eyes of friendship read the explanatory letter, judged 
it convenable, and the hand of friendship posted it to 
La Blancherie. Peace once more folded her dove's 
wings and made her nest in Manon's breast, for a week 
later (January 23, 1776) she writes to Sophie that 
she has again recovered her calmness, and though 
there is a certain greffier de bdtiments, who is paying 
his court through Sister Sainte Agathe, she, Manon, 
considers herself bound to D. L. B.; her reason is a 
pretty bit of heart-casuistry: '^ Car lorsqu'on laisse 
voir a un homme quon Vaime, on a beau lui montrer 



FIRST SUITORS loi 

une vertu capable de dompter le sentiment, il se repose 
toujours sur la recommandation secrete du cceur: tout 
en croyant a Vhero'isme il espere en la nature. Me livrer 
a un autre serait done trahir un espoir que faurais donne 
moi-meme." 

This conclusion established, Manon is placidly happy 
in spite of the unwelcome suit of not only the grefier 
but a protege of Abbe Legrand, whose quiet persis- 
tency causes some anxiety. She is occupied, too, in 
theological discussions with Sophie, discussions en- 
tirely free from theological rancor, in which she de- 
fines and justifies her own beliefs. She reads Homer 
(in translation, of course), and is enchanted. She 
throws herself *'up to the collar" into the study of 
the antique poets. 

Still D. L. B. is always in the foreground of her views 
of life and conduct. She sends his book and her own 
criticism of it to Sophie, and his presence at the me- 
morial mass for her mother disturbs her tranquillity. 
D. L. B. absent is a source of strength and consolation, 
a kind of tutelary genius, but actually seen and heard 
he troubles the pure fountain of her fancy and dims 
the noble image mirrored there; it is almost obliterated 
when one day, walking with Mademoiselle Hangard 
in the Luxembourg garden, she meets him with a feather 
in his hat ! He, the Spartan, the philosophical, the 
lover of the simple life, tricked out with a macaroni 
plume like a frivolous follower of Richelieu, or a foppish 
imitator of De Tilly ! Manon cannot reconcile the 
presence of this futile ornament with her idea of D. 
L. B., and, to excuse her preoccupation with an ap- 
parent trifle, notes how the smallest details acquire 



102 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

importance when they pertain to a beloved object, 
and appear to be betrayals of character. 

While she was tormented with her first doubts of 
D. L. B.'s impeccabihty, Mademoiselle Hangard gave 
another turn to the screw by remarking that La 
Blancherie had been forbidden a friend's house be- 
cause he boasted that he was about to marry one of 
the daughters, and that as he was constantly offering 
his empty hand to rich young ladies he was known 
as the lover of the eleven thousand virgins ! 

Was there ever a ruder awakening from a dream ! 
Manon gasped, blushed, doubted, and then began 
to reason over her infatuation. Even making allow- 
ances for prejudice and exaggeration, D. L. B. in the 
light of these discoveries, instead of the devoted and 
disinterested paragon she had fancied him, seemed 
but a fortune-hunter who had sought her because she 
was an only daughter, and presumably the heiress 
of her family. And she had admired him, believed in 
him, and had written him an enthusiastic, almost 
tender, letter that was an indirect avowal of affection ! 
Manon, when her first burning sense of maidenly shame 
cooled, tried to be just to D. L. B., though she was 
more vexed with him than with herself, which was 
hardly fair. She admitted that she had considered 
him more estimable than he really was, that a pre- 
conceived idea confuses one's impressions of realities, 
and that he may have owed most of his good qualities 
to her idealization of him; in a word, she began to strip 
the crystals off the bough. It is always a sad process, 
the eviction of a bankrupt tenant from a young heart, 
and for several days Manon was really ill. Then she 



FIRST SUITORS 103 

sought comfort in the thought that she would belong 
only to some one who really was what she had believed 
La Blancherie to be, and D. L. B. would always pos- 
sess the advantage of having first resembled her ideal, 
which was more subtle than tender. "I hope that he 
will prove to be what I thought he was, but I have no 
longer the invincible belief that was so sweet. My 
reason profits by the suffering of my heart, and the 
worship of Minerva is no longer interrupted by that 
of loving hope. D. L. B. has become matter for grave 
reflection as well as tender sentiments." (June 25, 
1776.) Manon took her bitter drug without grimac- 
ing — at least in public — and the bitterness seems to 
have soon been modified by the sweets of philosophy. 
"I have beaten down my hopes. I have used to cure 
the wound in my heart all the means that a healthy 
mind can furnish. I am at present convalescing hap- 
pily." "Oh ! D. L. B.," she writes, after telling Sophie 
of the refusal of a new off'er, **it is not to thee that I 
devote myself, but to the prototype, to the model 
which I thought thou resembledst, I deceived my- 
self, and I mourn my error more for thee than for my- 
self. / still possess my object, but thou art nothing." 
Then she adds, with that irrepressible frankness that 
always ballasts her flights to the empyrean of senti- 
ment: "/'<2z pourtant bien de la peine a le croireT Bien 
de la peine? At times, perhaps; for it is difficult to 
dislodge an illusion even when pride lends a hand to 
the process, and if the wound in her heart was healing 
fast her self-love was still bleeding, and slow of cure. 
Perhaps Sophie was not surprised when she received 
an agitated letter from Manon announcing that D. 



I04 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

L. B. had sought and obtained an interview and was 
coming to explain himself! 

He came (December 21, 1776), and Manon's in- 
ward perturbation was manifested only by an access 
of dignity. To D. L. B.'s protestations of gratitude 
for this favor she answered coldly that she had, im- 
pelled by feeling, written him a letter that expressed 
the sentiments she then felt, and of which she was 
not ashamed; "one may weep over one's mistakes, 
but to deceive oneself is not a crime. What do 
you wish of me?" He replied, chilled by her frigid 
attitude, that he had long desired to express his grati- 
tude for her letter and the high esteem it had inspired 
in him, but he had been prevented first by her own 
commands, and then by his illness, his failure to estab- 
lish himself, the indifference of his mother towards 
him, and checks and disappointments of all kinds. 

To these confidences Manon listened judicially, 
leaning back in her bergere, her cheek resting on her 
hand. When the list of misfortunes was complete, 
she answered icily that really all this was "a useless 
side-issue." 

D. L. B. was inexperienced enough in the ways of 
women to be disconcerted instead of encouraged by 
her elaborate coldness. He persisted in his explana- 
tions, however, and begged her to define what she 
meant by mistakes. She returned, always in the same 
detached tone, that some special remarks had caused 
her to reflect on the mistakes one can make in judging 
by appearances, and that she had profited by them, 
while feeling at the same time all the mortification 
they caused. Expressions of astonishment and regret 



FIRST SUITORS 105 

on the part of D. L. B. were immediately followed 
by a well-pleaded justification. Manon then con- 
fessed with her usual sans gene^ that after having dis- 
tinguished him from most young men by placing him 
far above them, she thought herself obliged to class 
him with them. 

D. L. B. very naturally grew warm, saying that 
she had only heard one side, and therefore should not 
judge him. This gave her an opportunity, which she 
was ungenerous enough to use, to freeze the current 
of his awakening geniahty by congratulating him on 
remaining worthy of her esteem, an esteem now quite 
cleared of the vapors of enthusiasm. This barbed 
remark added a new smart to his various disappoint- 
ments: in his career at court, and in literature, for 
his book had not proved successful, and perhaps pre- 
cipitated his resolution to turn his back on the world 
and bury himself in the country. 

They discussed this and kindred subjects for some 
four hours. Manon^ thawed by his evident distress, 
endeavored to console him by the heart-warming as- 
surance that as long as he was faithful to his principles 
she should never consider him unhappy, and that to 
deserve one's own self-respect was the greatest of bless- 
ings, and an equivalent for the loss of everything else. 
Perhaps La Blancherie found her confidences in regard 
to her own situation more comforting than these gelid 
maxims. Manon confessed that fortune had deserted 
her also; that she should have to depend upon herself; 
that she was seeking the means of Hving in liberty; 
that under certain circumstances she might sacrifice 
this coveted liberty, but that she would have to re- 



io6 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

spect a man much more than herself in order to be 
willing to owe him everything. La Blancherie, more 
encouraged by her admissions than dashed by her 
reflections, begged for a correspondence, the permission 
to see her, or at least to send her news of him, to which 
she opposed a resolute refusal. 

Disappointed in these demands, D. L. B., ever fertile 
in projects, proposed that Manon should write some 
articles for a journal that he hoped to publish (pre- 
sumably before his renunciation of the world). This 
paper, an imitation of the English Spectator, was to 
be devoted to essays in the form of letters, on literature, 
criticism, manners, and morals. Manon proved as 
reluctant to write letters for his journal as she was 
to correspond with D. L. B. in a private capacity. 
For the moment she was out of love with letters, though 
I do not believe her refusal to collaborate with D. L. B. 
was as high and stately as she represents it in her 
Memoires. The letter written to her other self, Sophie, 
in which she sets down this interview immediately 
after it happened, is much kinder and more natural 
in tone than the abstract of it she wrote years after- 
wards when the frivolity and restlessness of D. L. B. 
had been amply proved. 

The long tete-a-tete was finally interrupted by the 
visit of jealous Cousin Trude, and Manon, the austere 
and frank, let him in through one door while the 
amour eux transi disappeared through the other. "I 
put on a roguish air to cover my desire to laugh at 
the little trick which I did fairly well; my poor cousin 
thought it was in his honor, and was overjoyed. In 
truth, I feel, through the uneasiness that the least con- 



FIRST SUITORS 107 

cealment gives me, how ill my directness would agree 
with an intrigue, no matter how creditable it was (if 
in any case there are creditable ones), but at the same 
time I acknowledge that the cunning of women is very 
apt at carrying them off." 

Thus Manon's tragedy of disappointed affection 
ended with a touch of farce, "The mask, or rather 
my veil, has fallen . . . admiration is silent, illusion 
is destroyed, in fine, love exists no more." She is en- 
tirely free from self-reproach, and manages to extract 
honey from what to most women would be a bundle 
of very bitter herbs. She magnanimously forgives 
D. L. B. in her thoughts for not being what she imag- 
ined he was, but in the flesh she punishes him for falling 
short of her ideal of him. Once thoroughly disillu- 
sioned, she is clear-sighted and just in regard to him, 
but too self-complacent in judging her own attitude. 
She flatters herself, perhaps, in believing that "her 
image graven in his memory will often serve as an 
object for comparisons by which it will lose nothing; 
that as long as he preserves the taste for fine and good 
things he will be obliged to associate them with her 
in his mind, and herein will be her triumph and her 
pride"; ergo she has only gained in this first skirmish 
of the heart. She has made a mistake, she has de- 
ceived herself, but her self-deception has been a stimu- 
lus to acts of kindness, and to sweet and elevated 
thought. She has fashioned an idol for herself, but 
has worshipped with a blameless heart and pure sacri- 
fices. With the same philosophic resignation with 
which she renounced her faith when it proved rebel- 
lious to the dictates of reason, as soon as the rain- 



io8 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

bow mist of illusion melted away she tumbled down 
her poor pinchbeck god from his altar. 

So ended the maiden adventure of Manon's heart, 
its first quest for the "inexpressive He." Poor La 
Blancherie was but the peg on which she hung a robe 
of golden and purple tissue, fancy spun, and she was 
too sane-minded, too healthy-hearted, above all too 
clear-eyed, not to recognize and confess her error. 
But recognition and confession do not forestall repeti- 
tion. Manon all her life was too apt to disguise 
her preferences as admirations. They were, however, 
never again as unjustifiable as her idealization of La 
Blancherie. 

Mammes Claude Pahin de la Blancherie was a type 
of the notionologue of his century, who was to find a 
freer scope for his mental uneasiness during the Revo- 
lution. There were many individuals of his genus, 
professional men with refined and expensive tastes 
and small means, educated beyond their capacity, 
and consequently discontented with the only positions 
they were able to fill. 

In the conservative past, except in the privileged 
classes, much was required for the building of a career. 
The individual was born predestined to a certain place, 
to a distinct future; the boundary-lines of accomplish- 
ment were fixed, the course of the life race measured 
and marked. There were no free passes to mental 
or social distinction. The world's fair was open to 
few. Life was coherent, its long perspective ordered 
like a formal garden, prizes were distributed accord- 
ing to certain regulations, and the places at the world's 
banquet were given by rule. If men were more con- 
tent than now in the station of life to which it had 



FIRST SUITORS 109 

pleased God to call them, discontent had to be asso- 
ciated with unusual capacity to change that station. 
Mere pretensions received less consideration than 
they do in our optimistic society. A desire to fly the 
track was not in itself considered an evidence of 
superiority. The ideal of the mid-eighteenth century 
was to subdue circumstances rather than to defy them, 
and the barriers by which society was divided and 
defended were more often overleaped by the able than 
undermined by the envious, or shattered by the merely 
rebellious. The bloody but unbowed pate was less 
reverenced than the head unbruised by butting against 
conventions, willing to bend to established usage and 
reserve its powers for more subtle struggles. Men of 
unusual ability accepted the conditions of life as a 
working hypothesis and wasted little force in opposing 
them. The social reformer, therefore, the "come- 
outer," was not the commonplace individual that he 
has since become, and had not yet been classified and 
labelled. Therefore a young, briefless lawyer, with a 
fair education, a stock of notions, and a facility in 
writing, was a more striking figure in Manon's formal 
social landscape than he would have been a decade 
or two later. 

Pahin de la Blancherie was not the literary adven- 
turer he has been called. It would be more just to 
describe him as a journalist without a job. His was 
the sensational modern-newspaper man's temperament: 
audacious, sensational, superficial, possessed of literary 
talent and a passion for novelties, wanting in taste, a 
stranger to delicacy. An unabashed opportunist, he 
was born too soon in a world too young. 

His first book, a novel with a purpose, was a close 



no MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

study of the errors and vices of very young men, and 
of their lamentable results. It was written "to en- 
lighten and assist parents in the education of their 
sons," a laudable intention not too diffidently expressed 
by the youthful author. 

Only the aloofness of a colorless, scientific style 
could invest so repulsive a subject with dignity. 
Nothing in La Blancherie's handling of his impos- 
sible theme justifies him in touching it at all. He was, 
nevertheless, in his way an innovator and a forerunner 
of the modern school of realistic fiction which occupies 
itself with questions economic and social, with medical 
and pathological studies, as often as with the mysteries 
of the heart or the problems of the mind. But La 
Blancherie was too early a laborer in this field of 
naturalistic fiction; his contemporaries, like Manon 
in her high-minded and penetratingly analyzed criti- 
cism of his work, found it lacking in seriousness. La 
Blancherie was even in his debut always sensational. 
He interspersed his distressing narrative with senti- 
mental appeals and plaintive lamentations, and smoth- 
ered his grim moral in the flowers of rhetoric. Parents 
were deaf to his warnings, and apparently refused 
enlightenment and assistance, for the book fell flat. 

His next move was to dub himself general agent for 
scientific and artistic correspondence, to open a hall 
in Paris for exhibitions of pictures and lectures on 
scientific and artistic subjects. In connection with 
this enterprise De la Blancherie published from 1779 
to 1787 a review called News of the Republic of Arts 
and Letters and a catalogue of French artists. His 
ventures were fairly successful; Roland went to some 



FIRST SUITORS iii 

of the lectures and found them well attended and 
interesting. The news and the catalogue are still help- 
ful to students of the art of the eighteenth century. 

In 1788 political affairs absorbed public attention, 
and La Blancherie's audiences diminished. He aban- 
doned the review, closed his hall, and went to London, 
where he happened to occupy Newton's old house. 
Feeling that the great astronomer was not sufficiently 
honored by his own country, he proposed that in dat- 
ing all public documents, after the words "year of 
grace," "and of Newton" should be added. He sug- 
gested also that the name of Newton should be given 
alternately with that of George to the kings of Eng- 
land. Albion was as indifferent to these reforms as 
the parents of Orleans had been to those contained 
in La Blancherie's book. Its author drifted about, 
tirelessly inventive, always busy with some new proj- 
ect. A literary free-lance, he had many adventures, 
and one most curious experience. He watched the 
little hourgeoise whose hand he had asked become the 
most powerful woman in France. He saw the girl who 
had once sent him a tender letter, writing to the 
King, the people, and the people's leaders, changing 
the course of European events, and sending an ulti- 
matum to the prince bishop of Rome. After that 
astounding transformation all the swift changes of 
roles, all the history that he saw made afterwards, for 
he lived until 181 1, must have seemed usual and ex- 
pected. 



CHAPTER VI 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL RELATIONS 

Manon's views of people who made no romantic 
appeal to her were free from any tinge of rose-color. 
In spite of her retirement she had occasional glimpses 
of artistic and literary circles, of the court and of the 
-petite noblesse. Mingled with her accounts of walks 
and studies, and the little, carefully finished, Dutch 
pictures of homely life, are cleanly outlined silhouettes 
of the actors in such scenes of the social comedy as 
her half-bourgeois, half-artistic environment afforded 
her. She had always been easily first in her small world; 
she now occasionally entered spheres in which she did 
not count at all — a salutary, perhaps, if not a delect- 
able experience. She was shocked and mortified that 
the Abbe Bimont's housekeeper, "a big, lean, yellow 
hackney, harsh-voiced, proud of her nobihty, boring 
everybody with her domestic talents, and her parch- 
ments," who could not write a decently spelled letter, 
and whose speech defied grammar, should be treated 
with consideration everywhere on account of her an- 
cestry, Manon drew large conclusions from the respect 
shown to an ignorant old maid's genealogical tree, and 
decided ''that the world was very unjust, and social 
institutions very absurd." 

Sophie's relatives in Paris, who were of the petite 
noblesse, did little to render their order more respect- 

112 



FAMILY AND SOCIAL RELATIONS 113 

worthy. These were an ignorant and tyrannical old 
uncle, whom Manon nicknamed "The Commandant," 
and the demoiselles de Lamotte, who prided themselves 
greatly on their birth, and reverently preserved, while 
not daring to use it, their mother's sac. This relic was 
a bag, embroidered with the family arms, used to hold 
books of devotion, and which it was the privilege of 
the nobility to carry, or have carried by page or lackey, 
to church. The de Lamottes' intimate circle was com- 
posed of various specimens of the ancient regime, 
withering away in a closed retort of bigotry and prej- 
udice, carefully guarded by all sorts of mental screens 
from the live issues and thought-currents of their 
time. There was M. de Vouglans, a learned but fa- 
natical magistrate, who had tried to refute Beccaria in 
a sanguinary defense of legal torture. There was the 
Chevalier des Salles, who had served and been seriously 
wounded in Louisiana — "more gravely wounded in the 
service of Venus than that of Mars," Manon mischie- 
vously remarks to Sophie — and who was affronting 
further dangers by playing cards and lover at once 
with the coquettish old Marquise de Caillavelle. 

Letters were represented by the de Lamottes' con- 
fessor, who wrote verses comparing Voltaire to Satan, 
and haute finance by a Cannet millionaire, who said 
regretfully, after calculating the royalties on a suc- 
cessful play: "Why did not my father have me 
taught to write tragedies .? I could have done them 
on Sundays." These people, keenly conscious of their 
small quantum of noble blood, and of Manon's lack 
of it, gave her a kind of brevet rank for Sophie's sake, 
and also because her musical accomplishments, her 



114 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

supposed expectations, and her winning presence add- 
ed a warm touch of life to their genteel petrifaction. 
But their condescension did little to increase the 
young republican's esteem for them or their order. 
She could not help making comparisons. They were 
so decidedly inferior in manners and culture to the 
painters and sculptors who came to her father's house; 
"that an ignorant millionaire or an impertinent offi- 
cer could enjoy privileges refused to real merit and 
talent" (to a Falconet, for instance) appeared to her 
as comical as it was unjust. 

Further experiences confirmed this growing con- 
viction of the absurdity of social conventions. Grand- 
mama Phlipon's sister had married a certain M. 
Besnard, an intendafit of the Jermier general Haudry. 
This was considered a mesalliance by bonne-maman, 
whose family pride, her granddaughter remarks, was 
*'deplace." M. Besnard proved to be the most ten- 
der and devoted of husbands. He and his wife were 
still living when Madame Roland wrote her Memoirs, 
and she always mentions them with affection. "I 
am proud of belonging to them, and with their char- 
acter and virtues I should be so even if M. Besnard 
had been a footman." Haudry, the employer of M. 
Besnard, was a type of the financier who, as Montes- 
quieu says, sustains the state as la corde soutient le 
pendu. A shrewd, close-fisted peasant, he had found 
his way to Paris, where he became one of those Jer- 
miers generaux who precipitated the ruin of France. 
He made an immense fortune at the expense of the 
pubHc, chose husbands for his granddaughters among 
the nobiHty, and left his son the means of playing 



FAMILY AND SOCIAL RELATIONS 115 

the gentleman. This son, having purchased the do- 
main of Soucy, promptly dubbed himself Haudry de 
Soucy, and assumed a patrician manner of Hving. 
Among his possessions was also the old chateau of 
Fontenay, where the Besnards spent the summer, and 
where their grandniece made a yearly visit. Every 
Sunday there was a ball on the lawns, a kind of decorous 
saturnalia where financiers, nobles, and peasants danced 
together, and Lubin and Annette were as welcome as 
Madame la Presidente or Monsieur le Baron. Near 
Fontenay was the cottage of Manon's nurse, and Fon- 
tenay itself was in the midst of ''charming woods, 
beautiful meadows, and cool valleys." 

A visit to the Haudry family was a necessary cour- 
tesy, which was promptly returned. An invitation 
to dinner at Soucy followed and was accepted by Ma- 
dame Besnard. To Manon's surprise it was not with 
their hostess, but at the second table with monsieur's 
gentlemen and madame's ladies-in-waiting, in a word 
a V office, that they dined. The girl's sense of humor 
salved her momentary mortification. Here was a 
novel vista of social life to be observed and noted. 
"It was a new spectacle for me, that of these second- 
class deities. I never imagined how ladies' maids could 
play at being grand folk. They were ready to receive 
us, and really made good understudies; dress, carriage, 
little airs, nothing was forgotten. The fresh spoils 
of their mistresses lent to their toilets a richness 
that a self-respecting bourgeoisie denied itself. The 
caricature of hon ton was added to a kind of elegance 
as far removed from the sobriety of the bourgeois as 
it was from the good taste of the artist. Nevertheless, 



ii6 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

the general tone of the chat would have deceived coun- 
try folk. It was worse with the men. The sword of 
monsieur the head butler, the attentions of monsieur 
the cook, the brilliant liveries of the footmen, could 
not redeem the awkwardness of their manners, their 
stilted speech, when they wished to appear dis- 
tinguished, or the commonness of their language, when 
they ceased to watch themselves. The conversation 
was filled with marquises, counts, and financiers, 
whose titles, fortunes, and marriages appeared to be 
the grandeur, the riches, and the business of those who 
talked of them. The superfluities of the first table 
overflowed on to this second one with an order, a neat- 
ness, that preserved their pristine appearance, and an 
abundance, which would be passed on to the third 
table, that of the servants, for those who sat at the 
second were styled officers. Gaming followed the 
meal, with high stakes, the ordinary amusement of 
these ladies, who played every day. A new world was 
opened to me, in which I found an imitation of the 
prejudices, the vices, or the follies of a world that ap- 
peared a little better but was hardly worth more." 

A visit to Versailles to see the court served to con- 
firm these impressions (September, 1774). The Abbe 
Bimont, the noble Mademoiselle d'Hannaches, Manon, 
and her mother occupied a little apartment lent them 
by one of Marie Antoinette's ladies-in-waiting. Thanks 
to her protection and the persistence of Mademoiselle 
d'Hannaches, they "saw everything," all the endless 
and empty ceremonies of the court. 

For a week they watched the large and small dinners 
of the royal family, the masses in the chapel, the gam- 



FAMILY AND SOCIAL RELATIONS 117 

ing, the promenades, all the complicated and weari- 
some formalities of palace life. It was not surprising 
that Manon preferred to look at the statues in the 
gardens rather than the people in the chateau. She 
longed to leave the three stuffy, dark rooms in the 
attic where they were lodged, next to the Archbishop 
of Paris, who occupied an equally small and airless 
apartment, and from whom they were separated by 
so thin a partition that they could not speak without 
being overheard. A glance at the old plans of the 
palace of Versailles proves in what evil-smelling rook- 
eries and rat-holes dukes and prelates were pleased 
to lodge, "pour etre plus a portee de tamper au lever des 
MajesteSy^ wrote the Spartan Manon. She was sensi- 
tive to the picturesqueness of ceremonious obser- 
vances, but their absurdity and the reverence and awe 
with which they surrounded, like a kind of special 
atmosphere, a group of individuals already too power- 
ful and in no way remarkable in themselves aroused 
her indignation. 

**Why, what have these people done to you?" said 
her mother, who accepted the adoration of royalty 
as she did rheumatism or the salt tax, without reason- 
ing or rebellion. "They have made me feel injustice 
and contemplate absurdity," retorted the admirer of 
antique republics. "I sighed while thinking of Athens, 
where I could have admired the fine arts without being 
wounded by the sight of despotism; in spirit I wan- 
dered through Greece, I was a spectator of the Olympian 
games, and I was annoyed that I was a Frenchwoman. 
Thus, impressed with all that the happy days of re- 
publics offered me, I passed over lightly the storms 



ii8 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

with which they were agitated. I forgot the death 
of Socrates, the exile of Aristides, the condemnation 
of Phocion. I did not know that Heaven reserved 
me to be a witness of errors Hke those of which they 
were the victims." 

Was Manon in 1774 already so ardent a republican ? 
Did she not in her Memoirs record the sentiments of 
the woman rather than those of the girl nineteen years 
younger ? It is easy to test the accuracy of her memory 
of that Versailles visit, for she wrote an account of it 
to Sophie on her return to Paris (October 4, 1774). 

"... I was much amused during my sojourn at 
Versailles. It was a journey undertaken for pleasure 
and curiosity, and for my part I found what I sought. 
. . . With a little imagination and taste it is impos- 
sible to see masterpieces of art with indifference, and 
if one is concerned with the general welfare, one is nec- 
essarily interested in the people who have so much 
influence on it. . . . But let us go back to Versailles. 
I cannot tell you how much what I observed there 
has made me prize my own situation, and bless Heaven 
that I was born to an obscure position. You will be- 
heve, perhaps, that this sentiment is founded on the 
slight value which I attach to opinion, and on the real- 
ity of the penalties of greatness. Not at all. It is 
founded on the knowledge which I have of my own 
character, which would be most harmful to myself 
and to the state were I placed at a certain distance 
from the throne, for I should be greatly shocked at 
the extreme inequality caused by rank between several 
millions of men and a single individual of the same 
kind. In my position I love the King because I hardly 



FAMILY AND SOCIAL RELATIONS 119 

feel my dependence on him. If I were too near him 
I should hate his grandeur. Such a disposition is not 
desirable in a monarchy; when it is found in a person 
possessing rank and power it is dangerous. With me 
it does not matter, for my education has taught me 
what I owe to the powers that be, and has caused me 
to respect and cherish through reflection and a sense 
of duty what I should not naturally have loved. Thus 
I believe, were it required of me, I could serve my 
King as ardently as the most zealous of Frenchmen, 
though I have not the blind partiality for his master 
with which he is born. A good king seems to me an 
almost adorable being. Still, if before coming into the 
world I had had my choice of a government, I should 
have chosen a republic. It is true that I should have 
wished it constituted differently from any in Europe 
to-day." 

These passages in the Memoirs and the letters have 
been cited at length because bits of them have been 
often adduced as proof of Manon's early hatred and 
envy of royalty. The enthusiasm of a young creature 
longing for a more equal distribution of opportunities 
for human happiness, dreaming of a Utopian republic, 
was devoid of bitterness and envy. Manon's con- 
demnation of the manifestly unjust and absurd was 
never unreasonable, though sometimes impatient. Like 
most educated persons of the Third Estate, she was 
justly intolerant of privileges that had no reason for 
being, either in the capacity of the noble or the in- 
capacity of the bourgeois. With every thinker she was 
opposed to the artificial distinctions which consigned 
the whole middle class to subaltern employments, and 



I20 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

in every career subjected it to the precedence of so- 
called superiors, who were often its inferiors in ability 
and achievement. But her iconoclasm was tempered 
by taste, and she was as ready to smile at the pre- 
tensions of a poetaster or the pose of a philosopher as 
at Mademoiselle d'Hannaches's six centuries of noble 
blood. 

Manon had ample opportunities to discover that 
snobbishness and adulation flourish as luxuriantly 
in literary as in aristocratic circles. At the musicales 
of the Abbe Jeauket, who had been court musician at 
Vienna, and had given lessons to Marie Antoinette, 
Manon met her first bluestocking. This was Madame 
de Puisieux, a friend of Diderot, and the writer of Les 
Caracteres, a moral work. An authoress was then 
something of a rarity, and presumably a person of 
unusual intelligence and dignity. Manon was shocked 
and disappointed at Madame de Puisieux's silliness, 
her childish affectations and coquetries, hardly par- 
donable in a young person, and curiously out of place 
in a toothless and bent old lady of over fifty. Manon 
concluded that the men who ridiculed women who 
wrote were wrong only in attributing exclusively to 
them the defects that they shared with them. 

Another authoress, whom the girl met at the con- 
certs of Madame de I'Epine, clinched this opinion. 
The sculptor L'Epine, a pupil of Pigalle, who was an 
old friend of M. Phlipon, had married an ex-cantatrice 
in Rome. This lady on her return to Paris gave weekly 
musicales y to which only ''bonne compagnie" was ad- 
mitted, and where good music was well played and 
sung. There Manon and her mother heard several 



FAMILY AND SOCIAL RELATIONS 121 

celebrated musicanti, and made some desirable ac- 
quaintances, among the '^ insolentes baronnesy les jolis 
abbes, les vieux chevaliers, et les jeunes plumets." 

Through Madame I'Epine also the Phlipons were 
bidden to an assembly that met every Wednesday at 
M. Vasse's apartment, near the barriere du Temple, 
and was devoted to letters. The kindly cantatrice 
assured them that the reunions there were "delicious," 
and persuaded them to accept an invitation. Manon's 
picture of it suggests one of Ollivier's clear, delicately 
bright interiors with their minutely drawn, vivid, 
little figures. "We climbed to the third floor and 
reached an apartment furnished in the usual way. 
Straw chairs, arranged in several rows, awaited the 
audience and were just beginning to be filled. Dirty 
copper candlesticks with tallow candles lighted this 
retreat, whose grotesque simplicity did not misrepre- 
sent the philosophical austerity and the poverty of a 
wit. Elegant young women, girls, several dowagers, 
a lot of little poets, des curieux et des intrigantSy formed 
the assembly. The master of the house, seated before 
a table, opened the proceedings by reading some of 
his own verses. The subject of them was a pretty 
little monkey that the old Marquise of Preville always 
carried in her mufF, and which she showed to all the 
company, for she was present, and hastened to offer 
the hero of the piece to our eager eyes. 

"Imbert [a well-known author] then took the chair. 
Imbert, poet of the Judgment of Paris, read an agree- 
able trifle, which was immediately praised to the skies. 
His reward followed. Mademoiselle de la Cosson- 
niere came after him, and read The Adieu to Colin, 



122 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

which, if it was not very clever, was certainly very 
tender. We knew that it was addressed to Imbert, 
who was on the eve of a journey, and it was smothered 
with compliments. Imbert recompensed his muse 
and himself by kissing all the women in the assembly. 
This gay and lively ceremony, though performed with 
propriety, did not please my mother at all, and seemed 
so strange to me that I appeared confused by it. After 
I do not know how many epigrams and quatrains, a 
man read some verses in a very declamatory manner 
in praise of Madame Benoit. She was present, and I 
must add a word about her to those who have not 
read her novels. 

"Albine was born in Lyons. She married the de- 
signer Benoit, went with him to Rome, and became 
a member of the Arcadian Academy. Just after her 
widowhood she returned to Paris, and remained there. 
She made verses and romances, sometimes without 
writing them, gave card-parties, and visited women 
of quality, who paid her in money and fine clothes for 
the pleasure of having a wit at their tables. Madame 
Benoit had been handsome. The aids of the toilet, 
and the desire to please, prolonged beyond the age 
which guarantees success in the endeavor, still ob- 
tained her some conquests. The openly voluptuous 
air of Madame Benoit was new to me. I was not 
less struck with the poetic incense which was lavished 
on her, and the expressions, * virtuous Benoit,' * chaste 
Benoit, repeated several times in these verses, that 
frequently forced her to raise a modest fan before her 
eyes. Meantime several men who doubtless found 
these eulogies very appropriate applauded raptur- 



FAMILY AND SOCIAL RELATIONS 123 

ously." Manon decided after these disillusioning ex- 
periences that she would eat her fingers rather than 
become an authoress, and that literature offered wo- 
men even more opportunities of becoming ridiculous 
than were afforded by the fine arts. 

Pleasanter than watching these unsuccessful escalades 
of Parnassus were Manon's frequent visits to the "dear 
little Uncle" Bimont, who had become canon of the 
Sainte Chapelle at Vincennes. His house there was 
pretty, the walks in the forest charming, and the so- 
ciety, noble, ecclesiastical, and military, less stiff and 
formal than either in Paris or the provinces. 

The chateau of Vincennes, like the palace of Hamp- 
ton Court, was inhabited by royal pensioners, many 
invalided officers and their families, and a chapter of 
ecclesiastics. Among them were several whose names 
fill a few lines on the pages of history: the Lieutenant 
du Roi, Rougemont, pimply and insolent, as Mira- 
beau, his prisoner, described him; the learned and 
toothless but still skittish Madame de Puisieux; 
Moreau de la Grave, the royal censor, of the type 
that condemned the encyclopedie and approved Cre- 
billon's novels, and the nimble-minded Caraccioli, 
better known to letters as GanganelH. 

The chateau was a little cosmos and lodged six hun- 
dred persons, without counting the prisoners in the 
dungeon. The Abbe Bimont was received everywhere, 
but made no .visits, and entertained but few people. 
There were balls, however, and races, inaugurated and 
patronized by the King's sporting brother, D'Artois, 
illuminations and fireworks, ever dear to the Gallic 
eye, and informal receptions every fine evening in the 



124 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

pavilion of the park. Manon forgot her books and 
enjoyed everything with the zest of girlhood, from 
the dances and the talks to the visits to the hermits 
in the woods. 

They amused themselves at home, too, for the abbe 
was as young as his niece. The only serpent in this 
little Eden was the blue-blooded Mademoiselle d'Han- 
naches, the abbe's housekeeper. Her irritable temper 
and tiresome pretensions troubled Manon more than 
they did her amiable uncle. One day when they were 
declaiming a most moving scene from one of Voltaire's 
tragedies, Mademoiselle d'Hannaches, who had been 
silently spinning, interrupted them with shrill screams 
to the hens, who, more appreciative than the lady of 
many quarterings, had assembled to listen. Naturally, 
such incidents were trying to an idealist. After dinner, 
when the table was cleared, with mufF-boxes for racks, 
music was made. "While the good Canon Bareux, 
spectacles on nose, plays the bass viol with shaking 
bow, I scrape my violin, another canon accompanies 
us on a squeaking flute, and we have a concert fit to 
frighten cats. Then I run into the garden, pick a rose 
or some parsley. I take a turn in the poultry-yard; I 
amuse myself with the brood hens and the little chicks. 
I rack my brain for anecdotes and stories to warm up 
these benumbed imaginations, and to turn the talk 
away from the chapter, which sends me to sleep some- 
times [1776]. ... At the canon's house I must live 
like a canoness. There the wine-cellar is better 
furnished than the library, and more time is spent at 
table than anyivhere else." 

Some of her holidays were more eventful. Strict 
as she was in many things, there was a lurking spirit 



FAMILY AND SOCIAL RELATIONS 125 

of adventure in her. All Manon's world loved dis- 
guises and masks, and to put on a maid's or a peas- 
ant's costume was often a means of travelling inex- 
pensively and safely. Manon, invited by her cousin 
Trude to spend the day in Etampes, and wishing to 
visit the sights (instead of passing the time listening 
to provincial gossip from her cousin's hostess), dressed 
as a peasant, mounted a donkey, and successfully 
played the role of country girl all day. She trotted 
about alone through Etampes, with her arms akimbo, 
visited everything, from the tanneries to the Calvary 
where Ravaillac sharpened his knife, dined with the 
cook, and decided that if she were ever able to travel, 
it would be dressed as a peasant or a man (June 16, 
1778). 

Perhaps her pleasantest social relations were with 
artists, relations singularly free from pretensions or 
artificiality. The genial freemasonry of the craft made 
the engraver a welcome visitor at the studios of emi- 
nent confreres. Manon's happiest hours with her 
father were passed in the ateliers of his friends, or at 
art exhibitions, where she keenly appreciated his tech- 
nical knowledge of and trained taste in the arts, and 
his evident pleasure in communicating them to her. 

A visit that she made to Greuze's studio is pleas- 
antly reported to Sophie (September 19, 1777). "The 
subject of his picture is 'The Paternal Curse.' I will 
not attempt to describe it in detail; it would be too 
long. . . . One may find fault with M. Greuze for 
the grayness of his coloring, which I should accuse 
him of putting in all his pictures if I had not seen on 
the same day a painting of another style which he 
showed me with especial kindness. It is a little, naiVe, 



126 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

fresh, charming girl who has just broken her jug. She 
has it on her arm, near the fountain where the acci- 
dent has just happened. Her eyes are not too widely 
opened, her mouth is yet half ajar, she is trying to 
realize her misfortune, and does not know if she is 
guilty or not. You cannot imagine anything more 
piquant or prettier. The only fault that one could 
justly find with M. Greuze is that he has not made his 
little one sorry enough to prevent her from returning 
to the fountain. I told him so, and the pleasantry 
amused us. He did not criticise Rubens this year, and 
I was better pleased with him personally. He told 
me complacently the amiable things the Emperor 
said to him. 'Have you been in Italy, sir?' 'Cer- 
tainly, Monsieur le Comte' [Joseph H was travelling 
incognito as the Count of Falkenstein]; 'I lived there 
two years.' *You surely did not find your style there; 
it belongs to you; you are the poet of your paintings.' 
This remark was very subtle; it had two meanings. 
I was naughty enough to underline one of them, an- 
swering him in a complimentary way: *It is true that 
if anything could add to the expressiveness of your 
pictures it is your descriptions of them.' The author's 
self-love served me well. M. Greuze appeared flat- 
tered. I stayed three-quarters of an hour. There 
were but few people there. Only Mignonne was with 
me. I had him almost to myself. I wished to add 
to the praises I gave him: 

On dit, Greuze, que ton pinceau, 
N'est pas celui de la vertu romaine ; 
Mais il peint la nature humaine: 
C'est le plus sublime tableau. 



FAMILY AND SOCIAL RELATIONS 127 

I kept quiet and that was the best thing that I 
did." 

Rousseau was less accessible. He had been for at 
least a year the god of Manon's idolatry when a friend 
gave her an opportunity to approach her deity by in- 
trusting her with a commission for Rousseau. Realiz- 
ing that he would not receive a young girl, for his 
devotees in Paris had been frightened away from his 
door by the snappish Cerberus, Therese Levasseur, 
Manon wrote him a long letter in which there was 
much besides the original errand, announcing that 
she would call for an answer. She describes her visit 
in a letter to Sophie: 

"I entered a cobbler's alley, the Rue Platriere. I 
climbed to the second story and knocked at the door. 
No one could enter a temple more reverently than 
I did this humble portal. I was agitated, but I felt 
none of the timidity that I experience in the presence 
of those petty society people for whom I have no real 
esteem. I balanced between hope and fear ... a 
woman of fifty years of age at least appeared. She 
wore a round cap, a simple, clean house-gown, and a 
large apron. She had a harsh, even a rather hard look. 

'Does M. Rousseau live here, madame?' 

'Yes, mademoiselle.' 

'May I speak to him.?' 

'What do you want of him .?' 
"*I have come for the answer to a letter I wrote 
him a few days ago.' 

" *He is not to be spoken to, mademoiselle; but you 
may say to the person who had you write — for cer- 
tainly it is not you who wrote a letter like that — ' 



128 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

" * Excuse me,' I interrupted. 

** *Even the handwriting is a man's — ' 

" *Do you want to see me write ?' I said, laughing. 

"She shook her head, adding: 'All that I can say 
is, that my husband has given up all these things en- 
tirely. He has left everything. He would not ask 
anything better than to be of service, but he is old 
enough to rest.' 

" *I know it, but I should have been flattered to 
receive this answer from his lips. I would have profited 
eagerly by this opportunity to offer my homage to 
the man of the whole world that I esteem the most. 
Receive it, madame.' 

"She thanked me, still keeping her hand on the 
lock, and I went down-stairs with the very slight satis- 
faction of knowing that he found my letter too well- 
written to believe it the work of a woman." (February 
29, 1776.) 

Not long afterwards Rousseau died, and Manon 
never saw the writer who, after Plutarch, had most 
powerfully affected her philosophy of life. Rousseau 
was to her, as to so many of her contemporaries, an 
initiator. His feverish passion, his sentiment, that so 
often declined into sentimentality, were the antidotes 
to the dryness and cynicism that were withering the 
heart of an overcivilized, artificial society. The glow- 
ing eloquence with which in the midst of conventions 
he advocated a return to nature; his sanctification of 
love; his tender idealization of the domesticities; his 
sympathy with childhood; his affection for beauty, 
music, flowers, the country; his audacious theories 
of political organization; his novel social system; 



FAMILY AND SOCIAL RELATIONS 129 

above all, his knowledge, intuitive and acquired of 
the heart, and the irresistible potency of a poignant 
appeal to it — all these rhapsodies and exhortations, 
and descriptions, invested with the magic of a style 
exquisitely simple and beautifully direct, caused not 
only one revolution but many. 

Like most of his readers, Manon was charmed and 
convinced at once by what Lecky called Rousseau's 
"wonderful fusion of passion and argument," his pre- 
eminent trait. His logical faculty, his able defense 
of his opinions, his vigorous grasp of principles, were 
those quahties that she was quaUfied to appreciate. 
Rousseau's shortcomings and defects were invisible 
to her. His lack of the justness of mind that under- 
lies authoritative opinions and prepares definite con- 
clusions by previously weighing and appraising values 
was unperceived by her, captivated by the logic with 
which he defended his tenets. That he made no original 
discoveries, that the doctrines of the Social Contract 
were largely derived from the works of Locke and 
Sidney, that his political system, when he diverged 
from these models, was clumsy and complicated, made 
little or no impression on a girl unfamiliar with ques- 
tions of practical politics. Nor did they on those older 
and wiser, who carried Rousseau's reforms and revolts 
into every department of life. 

Women were the most avid recipients of Rousseau's 
message. His gospel was received by them with an 
unquestioning consent, a complete adherence, that 
they had never yielded to the teaching of Voltaire. 
The reason is easily found. The task of Voltaire was 
to annihilate the old creed, to demonstrate its incapac- 



I30 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

ity to satisfy the spiritual and mental needs of hu- 
manity; the mission of Rousseau was to establish a 
new faith, to prove the adequacy of natural religion 
to the ethical and emotional wants of man. It is the 
nature of creatures feminine to adore the creative rather 
than the destructive powers. Voltaire, the extirpator 
of intolerance, was perforce less authoritative to beings 
who were receptive and assimilative than Rousseau, 
the apostle of a new worship, the religion of the heart. 
He who aspires to leadership of popular opinion should 
be dogmatic. Assertion, not exposition, is his business. 
He should not content himself with a statement of 
facts, and then leave his followers to draw their own 
inferences. With most men outworn formulas are re- 
jected because newer formulas are ready at hand to 
replace them. "From a board one drives out a nail 
with another nail," prosaically remarked the poet 
Cino. Men live by affirmations, not by negations. 

Voltaire demonstrated; Rousseau dogmatized. Vol- 
taire, as became the founder of intellectual liberty, 
presented his case with comment and suggestion, com- 
parison and example, and then left the conclusion to 
his reader's judgment. Rousseau, a true child of clear- 
headed, logical, narrow-minded Geneva, began his 
case by pronouncing a decision, continued his plea 
with a brilliant defense of his position, and ended with 
a burst of eloquence, or a touch of sentiment. 

Voltaire's appeal was to the mind; Rousseau's to 
the feelings. It was the absurdity of legal torture, the 
unreason of religious intolerance, the stupidity of 
cruelty, that revolted Voltaire. It was not only women 
who failed to perceive the earnestness under the gibes 



FAMILY AND SOCIAL RELATIONS 131 

of this master of mockery, Voltaire's method of at- 
tack on abuses mystified the literal-minded in general. 
His light lash cut to the bone, but it was wielded with 
an air of easy trifling, an appearance of detachment, 
that to the enthusiast seemed lacking in moral serious- 
ness. Manon apparently never included the defender 
of the Calas and the Sirven among her admirations, 
though she made many Protestant friends. 

The diamond-pointed wit and the satire of Candida 
left her unmoved. She merely mentions having read 
it as a child, and does not refer to it again. Children, 
like simple-minded folk, and cultivated dogs, and all 
instinctive creatures whose perceptions are unblunted 
by reasoning and undulled by reflection, are repelled 
by irony. Sarcasm generally offends, and consequently 
seldom sways, women. No satirist from Juvenal to 
our own day has ever been a lady's author. The dicta 
of the spirit that denies are reluctantly accepted by 
Eve's daughters. Voltaire, the athlete of intellectual 
emancipation, the bitter jester, railing against bigotry 
and cruelty, would never have been revered by them 
had not the scoffer been doubled by Voltaire the bene- 
factor, the saviour and defender. The charities of the 
Sage of Ferney softened the ironies of Arouet, the 
pungent wit. 

Manon had read Voltaire's articles in the Encyclo- 
pedie side by side with Rousseau's Emile, which she 
admired temperately and discussed rationally. But 
with the Heloi'se she slipped past the wicket of reason 
and found herself in an enchanted wood, a realm of 
demonstrative affections and delicious emotions, where 
sentiment was lord of life. To feel and to express feel- 



132 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

ing, these were the first commandments of the new 
ruler, to return to nature the third. Never was sub- 
ject more eager to hear, more prompt to obey, than 
was Manon. She was one of a countless multitude 
of converts. There can be no clearer evidence of the 
sustained fervor with which Rousseau's mandates 
were followed than the transformation of costume, 
of daily habits, of education, of literary style, of the 
face of the earth itself which took place, not only in 
France but in England, Germany, and Italy, at the 
close of the eighteenth century. Rousseau had made 
man over in his own image. 

Julie, the new Helo'ise, does not figure among our 
"favorite heroines." Her transports and despairs, 
her sacrifices and scruples, would excite smiles rather 
than admiration in a society that cherishes detach- 
ment as she cultivates expansion, and no doubt Saint- 
Prieux seems as far away from the sympathies of the 
twentieth-century lover as is Theagenes or Amadis. 
But to Manon the exalted and loquacious pair seemed 
as real, as moving, as were Lancelot and Guinevere 
to ill-starred Francesca. Rousseau sanctioned Manon's 
own excess of emotion, her ardors and enthusiasms; 
he kindled her imagination, which her studies and 
meditations had held in leash; she confessed as much 
in after life. 



CHAPTER VII 
BEREAVEMENT AND NEW FRIENDS 

Manon's mother, her daughter suspected, had pru- 
dently kept the Nouvelle Heloise from the intense and 
imaginative girl. It was not until after Madame 
Phlipon's death that the book was brought to Manon 
by the Abbe Legrand in the hope of rousing her from 
the lethargy into which she had fallen. Her loss was 
literally irreparable. Her mother had been ailing for 
some time, and the doctors had recommended exercise 
and country air, and a short visit to Meudon seemed 
to prove as beneficial as it was delightful. The day 
after their return to town Manon went to visit Sister 
Agathe at the convent; she left her mother a little 
tired from her excursion, but apparently well, at three 
o'clock; at five, on her return, Madame Phlipon was 
dying. The end came before midnight. A stroke 
of paralysis, aggravated by an abscess in the head, 
which had not been suspected by her physicians, was 
the cause of her death (June 7, 1775). 

The shock threw Manon into a nervous fever. For 
two weeks the kind Besnards, who seemed to find youth 
and strength to nurse her, feared for her life and her 
sanity. One fainting-fit followed another, and the re- 
lief of weeping was denied her, until a tender letter 
from Sophie opened the source of her tears. She felt 
herself an orphan, and her first interview with her 
father after their bereavement increased her sense of 

133 



134 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

isolation. M. Phlipon's proffered consolations were 
of a more practical than sentimental nature. Provi- 
dence had disposed of everything for the best, he as- 
sured Manon. Her mother's work, viz., her child's 
education, was finished, and if Manon was fated to 
lose one of her parents, it was fortunate that Heaven 
had left her the one who would be most useful to her 
pecuniarily ! This eminently sensible consideration 
literally distracted the bereaved girl. Her father's 
insensibility pierced her wounded heart anew, and 
brought on a return of the dangerous swoons and con- 
vulsions. She was convinced that she was her mother's 
unique mourner, and the sorrow that should have 
gently drawn father and daughter together, com- 
pleted their estrangement. 

Madame Phlipon's death closed the sunny and tran- 
quil period of Manon's youth; with that gentle spirit, 
its cloudless morning passed away. The girl now in- 
herited her mother's household cares, which she shared 
with the devoted Mignonne, and the far more difficult 
task of trying to divert and interest her father, and to 
keep him by his own fireside. She was lamentably 
unsuccessful. Piquet was insipid when played for 
love, conversation flat where there were no ideas and 
tastes in common, no love of music or of books. After 
some dutiful endeavors M. Phlipon fled from the dul- 
ness of evenings at home to more convivial society. 
If the story of the Idle Apprentice is a sad one, that 
of the Idle Master is sadder still. M. Phlipon grew 
every day more indolent and dissipated; he took a 
mistress, and he spent more than he earned. Help- 
lessly Manon watched their modest fortune dwindle 



BEREAVEMENT AND NEW FRIENDS 135 

away. After her mother's death her own dowry should 
have been secured to her, but her relatives thought, 
naturally, that her interests were safe in her father's 
hands, and also feared to offend him by asking for the 
customary inventory of property. Manon herself 
had too much family pride to complain of her father's 
disorders and extravagance. 

Her books and her pen were her consolations. She 
wrote a number of meditations and descriptions, which 
she entitled somewhat pompously (Euvres de loisir, et 
reflexions diverses. She had no other object in writ- 
ing than to record her thoughts and experiences and 
to express her emotions; and these essays are in no 
way remarkable. They are tinged with a mild melan- 
choly, and are generally didactic in tone. They con- 
tain touches of grace and feeling; among them is a 
very tender tribute to Madame PhHpon's memory, 
and a vivid account of a literary pilgrimage to the 
Hermitage of Rousseau at Montmorency with M. de 
Boismorel (October 29, 1775). 

This gentleman, whom Manon had not seen since 
her stay with Bonnemaman on the He Saint Louis, 
came to make his visit of condolence after Madame 
PhHpon's death (June, 1775). He found the studious 
child had budded into a pretty and cultivated girl. 
He soon made a second visit; Manon was absent, 
but her CEuvres were on the table in her little retreat 
that M. PhHpon was indiscreet enough to show him. 
M. de Boismorel begged for a sight of the manuscripts, 
and le parent terribley who did nothing by halves, 
promptly lent them to the curious visitor. 

The wrath of Manon, sing Muse, when on her 



136 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

return she discovered the violation of her sanctuary ! 
"This offense against liberty and propriety," as she 
termed it, was condoned next day after receiving a 
well-turned letter from M. de Boismorel, offering her 
the use of his library and expressing his interest in 
her work. This was the origin of a long correspondence 
and a warm friendship; Manon tasted for the first 
time the pleasure of being appreciated by a man whose 
judgment she valued. 

M. de Boismorel possessed, besides his books and 
many other desirable things, an estate below Charen- 
ton, the Petit Bercy, with a garden running down to 
the Seine. He often pressed the Phlipons to visit him 
there, but Manon, remembering his mother's reception 
of Bonnemaman, long resisted, and only yielded when 
further refusal would have imperilled her friendship 
with her dear "Sage," as she called her new friend. 
It is amusing to compare this interview with the former 
one. The ladies of the De Boismorel family were in 
the summer drawing-room when the Phlipons arrived, 
and the dragon of Manon's memory seemed less formi- 
dable in the presence of her amiable and devout daugh- 
ter-in-law. The mama, who had patronized Madame 
Phlipon and treated Manon as though she were a muff- 
monkey or a spaniel, was rather more polite to a tall 
and dignified young woman: 

"'How good-looking your dear daughter is, M. 
Phlipon ! Do you know that my son is enchanted 
with her .? Tell me, mademoiselle, don't you wish to 
be married ?' 

"* Others have thought about that for me, madame, 
but I have not yet reasons to decide me.' 



BEREAVEMENT AND NEW FRIENDS 137 

"*You are hard to please, I think. Have you any 
objections to a man of a mature age?' 

"'The knowledge that I should have of the person 
himself would alone determine my liking, my refusal, 
or my acceptance.' 

"'That kind of marriage has more durabiUty; a 
young man often slips through your fingers when you 
believe him most attached to you.' 

"'And why, mother,' said M. de Boismorel, who had 
just come in, 'why should not mademoiselle believe 
herself able to captivate him utterly?' 

'"She is dressed with taste,' observed Madame de 
Boismorel to her daughter-in-law. 

"'Ah! extremely well, and so modestly, too,' she 
answered, with the suavity which belongs only to the 
devout, for she was of that class, and the prim little 
ringlets that shaded an agreeable face which had seen 
thirty-four summers were the sign of it. 

'"How different,' she added, 'from that mass of 
plumage we see fluttering above empty heads. You 
don't care for feathers, mademoiselle ? ' 

"*I never wear them, madame, because being the 
daughter of an artist, and going out on foot, they would 
seem to announce a position and a fortune which I 
don't possess.' 

"'But would you wear them in another situation ?' 

"'I don't know. I attach small importance to trifles. 
Appropriateness is my only rule in such matters, and 
I take care not to judge a person by my first impres- 
sions of her dress.' 

"The observation was severe, but I made it so 
mildly that its edge was dulled. 



138 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

** *A philosopher!' she exclaimed with a sigh, as if 
she recognized that I was not of her kind." 

How differently would this patronizing kindness 
have been received by a young person of the middle 
class across the Channel ! How an English Manon 
would have blushed and simpered and bobbed her 
thanks for the great lady's condescension ! "La, ma'am, 
thank you kindly — it will be my study to deserve your 
future commendation," Miss Burney's Evelina would 
have said shyly, hanging her head in a pretty con- 
fusion, far more winning than the cool self-possession 
of this featherless philosophe. 

M. de Boismorel's garden and library and the ex- 
cursions he planned for the Phlipons proved more 
pleasing than his womankind. His only son, Roberge, 
an ordinary and eccentric boy of seventeen, often 
formed one of the partie carree. He had an unpleasant 
habit of staring at Manon, but she saw more curiosity 
than friendliness in his looks, and rather resented his 
attentions. To her he was but one of those many in- 
ferior and incapable persons on whom a whimsical 
social order had bestowed undeserved advantages. 
She learned later that M. de Boismorel had said to 
her father: "Ah, if my son were worthy of your daugh- 
ter, I might appear singular but I would be happy!" 

Young De Boismorel was a cross to his cultivated 
and studious father. He was indolent and pleasure- 
loving, cared for little except the opera and the Italian 
comedy and the companionship of his frivolous cousin, 
De Favieres. This youthful magistrate, made a con- 
seiller de Parlement at the age of twenty-one, spent 
his time writing comedies and ariettes, wearing his 



BEREAVEMENT AND NEW FRIENDS 139 

robe as though it were a jester's motley. As a counter- 
attraction to the fascinations of De Favieres, and as 
an incentive to study, M. de Boismorel proposed to 
Manon that she should gently admonish Roberge ! 
Modestly veiled by anonymity, she might in the form 
of a letter hold forth to him on the sweets of a useful 
and innocent life and the joys of work and effort. 
Ancient precepts that from a father's lips had proved 
ineffectual might, with a touch of mystery and com- 
bined with an appeal to the boy's curiosity, appear 
less trite and more forceful. It was only in a literary 
century that such means could be conceived of to coun- 
teract a young man's fondness for the stage and the 
stage-door. We refer, as a matter of course, to the cor- 
ruption of the eighteenth, but what parent in the 
twentieth century would count on a prettily written 
homily to reform a lazy-minded and dissipated young 
man ^ Truly those were innocent as well as golden 
days, when the pen was mighty as the powder-puff". 

Manon, pressed into service as a reformer, at first 
declined, then accepted, and wrote a homily which she 
despatched to Sophie, who sent it to Roberge from 
Amiens. This letter is an example of an extinct literary 
genre. Bound to be didactic in tone, it is a terse and 
clear exposition of Manon's own philosophy of life, 
a sermon against idleness and selfishness, a eulogy 
of activity and usefulness. It is so faintly tinged with 
irony, so deftly sweetened by an appeal to the recipient's 
self-love, and so stimulating to curiosity, that the boy 
swallowed the bitter draft as though it had been a sug- 
ared beverage. He proudly read it to his friends, who 
ascribed it to that immoral moralist Laclos, and envied 



I40 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

Roberge his scolding from such a source. So deep 
was the impression made on his vanity that he actually 
became industrious and domestic — for a little while. 

"Yes, monsieur," the letter commences, "on the 
banks of the Somme you are known and cherished. 
In spite of what the good La Fontaine says, I will wager 
that some of the Abderites admired Democritos, and 
in this country, sir, our minds are not so befogged 
by the smoke of peat that we do not recognize and 
praise the inimitable color, the brilliancy, the light- 
ness of the manners of the capital; above all, of that 
class of distinguished inhabitants in which you hold 
so high a rank. One of my fellow citizens [Gresset] 
celebrated formerly with success the exploits of a 
famous parrot; there is still among us more than one 
author fitted to take you for his hero. I, however, shall 
keep the silence becoming a poor little modern writer, 
disregarding the indiscreet ardor which in a transport of 
admiration cries to me audaces fortuna juvaty and shall 
leave to others who are more expert the task of cele- 
brating the gift of being amiable without striving to 
become so, and the precious art of becoming indepen- 
dent even while daily acquiring new ties. I ask you 
only what beneficent genius has bestowed on you these 
rare gifts which make you in my eyes an inexplicable 
phenomenon. Imbued with old ideas, I followed a toil- 
some road, your example struck me, I stop and 
study it. . . . 

"I had hardly begun to live when, parched by the 
thirst for happiness which is common to us all, I sought 
anxiously everything that I thought could appease it. 
What pleases at first does not satisfy always; I have 



BEREAVEMENT AND NEW FRIENDS 141 

proved that more than once. Alas ! why was I not as 
happy as so many magistrates without business, so 
many pretty abbes without cares, so many people 
who do nothing. Perhaps, it is true, habit and custom 
would have finally given me the right to be useless 
without remorse, and idle with impunity, but while 
waiting for this comforting privilege, my fervid imag- 
ination created new griefs for me. 

"I imagined Minerva appearing to me under the 
aspect simple and noble at once, that characterizes 
wisdom; her sage advice still echoes in my ears, the 
remembrance of it pursues me constantly. Teach 
me how to forget it, and share with me the importunate 
obsession. 'You wish to be happy,' said Minerva to 
me; 'learn then how to be so.' " 

Then follows an exposition of Manon's system of 
moral philosophy, and its practical application to 
daily life. Setting out with the desire of happiness as 
the means of gratifying it, she advocates an intelligent 
self-interest: human solidarity, the unity of society, 
the non-existence of independent felicity impose on us 
the obligation of being useful, while study and reflec- 
tion furnish us the only means of understanding our 
duties and the strength of mind to perform them. 

"*An enlightened reason is the preservative against, 
or the balm for, misfortune; a full and occupied life 
is the pivot of pleasures. Even if everything is only 
a matter of opinion, if existence is but a dream, it 
does not follow that there are no rules by which we 
may dream more at our ease, and the sage will always 
follow them. Let me light in thy heart the divine 
fire of enthusiasm for the beautiful, the good, and the 



142 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

true.' With these words Minerva disappeared and 
left me troubled, moved. I began to follow the path 
she traced for me, when seeing you nimbly running in 
the opposite direction, a wish to gallop after you was 
born in me. 1 did so, here I am, but let it be to 
lead you back again. 

"It is useless to carry my fiction further; you under- 
stand me. I know you well enough to believe that 
yours is a nature that permits us to hope; I have seen 
a father who deserves to gather the fruit of his care. 
The exhortation of a man who will remain unknown 
to you should not be indifferent to you. Feeling and 
truth guide my pen, they alone should touch you, as 
they alone with me replace wit and talent. How 
flattered I should be, if on finding you what you 
might be on my return, I should be able to say to 
myself: 'I have contributed to his happiness, and to 
that of a worthy family, of which he is the consola- 
tion and the hope.' " 

M. de Boismorel's kindness supplied Manon not 
only with such tomes as those of Bayle but also the 
literary novelties of the moment. By the Sage's 
invitation she attended a sitting of the Academy, a 
social as well as a literary event, on Saint Louis's day 
(August 25, 1775). It was a complicated and lengthy 
performance, beginning with a mass in the chapel, 
sung by the stars of the opera. A fashionable preacher 
pronounced the panegyric on the saintly King, ren- 
dered piquant, on this occasion, by an indirect satire 
of the government and constant references to the 
new philosophy. In the evening Manon saw, for the 
first time, some of those writers whose works were 



BEREAVEMENT AND NEW FRIENDS 143 

her daily companions. She confesses to disappoint- 
ment. The audacious D'Alembert was insignificant 
to look on, and sharp and rasping to hear, and the 
Abbe Delille read his tuneful verses in an unmusical 
voice. The annual prize was given to La Harpe, and 
his essay, L'Eloge de Catinat, has taken a permanent 
place in French literature. This more than fulfilled 
the girl's expectations, and she paid it the tribute of 
tears, tears of enthusiasm, of noble excitement. And 
to one "born a scribe" a meeting of the Academy was 
truly a red-letter day. This public homage to litera- 
ture, this honoring of letters as one of the nation's 
glories, not only by the intellectual element but by 
the court, the nobles, the fashionable, and the frivolous, 
seemed a sanction of her own master-passion, and to 
link the solitary and obscure student to an illustrious 
band of coworkers. 

Manon's devotion to literature was wholesomely 
incited by the appreciation and companionship of 
some new and congenial acquaintances. The '*Sage 
of Bercy" was but the first among a little group of 
congenial friends that frequented the Phlipon house- 
hold. Manon's mother lacked the social instinct with 
which her more expansive and highly vitalized daughter 
was endowed. Visits from friends outside the family 
circle had generally been confined to the shop and the 
studio; they now extended to the salle, where there 
was a shy but cordial hostess, who could listen as well 
as she could talk, and whose wide reading and alert 
mind lent a vivid and varied charm to conversation. 
And the friends who occasionally dined with the 
Phlipons, and sat out the long " apresdisnees" around 



144 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

the fire, chatting, reading aloud, reciting verses, dis- 
cussing freely without heat or bitterness all things 
under the stars, and some things beyond them, appear 
singularly living and attractive through the dust of 
a century. One feels a faint retrospective envy of 
the girl who could gather about her, poor and obscure 
as she was, such a coterie of studious and intellectual 
men, and a conviction that the social conditions which 
produced them were more favorable to the expansion 
of mind and development of character than modern 
historians are disposed to admit. M. de Sainte Lette, 
M. de Sevelinges, the Captain of Sepoys, Demont- 
chery, the Swiss watchmaker More, the Abbe Bexon, 
a collaborator of Buffon, to whose works he intro- 
duced Manon, and Pictet de Warambe, a Genevese 
literary man of some note, who corresponded with 
Franklin, wrote for the Journal des Dames, and 
planned and discussed his articles with Manon, formed 
her little circle, in which M. de Sainte Lette was 
facile princeps. He was a man of sixty years, who 
having been a waster in his youth, had been obliged 
to become a worker in later life. To mend his broken 
fortunes he had passed thirteen years in Louisiana, 
as superintendent of the French trade with the In- 
dians, where his "prodigious strength of body, fully 
equalled by that of his mind," is noted in a page of 
New World history. He was spending ten months in 
Paris when he made Manon's acquaintance (January 
II, 1776), through a letter of introduction to her fa- 
ther, and was on his leisurely way back to Pondicherry, 
where he occupied an official position. He spent a 
large part of his leave in Paris at Manon's fireside. 



BEREAVEMENT AND NEW FRIENDS 145 

Gentlemen of over forty years of age were considered 
harmless by M. Phlipon — a most vigilant duenna when 
younger men were present. The society of this dis- 
illusioned yet not embittered man of the world, who 
was also a man of affairs, who knew the savannas of 
America as well as the bosquets of Versailles, and 
whose naturally philosophical mind had been en- 
riched and developed by his wide experience of men, 
brought a novel element into Manon's life. M. de 
Sainte Lette personified for her that knowledge of the 
world which she had hitherto often failed to discover 
in the specimens of the ancien regime that had drifted 
across her social horizon. His winning simplicity 
pleaded pardon for his mental and social superiority, 
and his utter absence of claim or pretension disposed 
his auditors to forgive his attainments. To the at- 
traction of a frank though grave manner M. de Sainte 
Lette added an intellectual vigor and independence 
of character which the gentle **Sage" did not pos- 
sess. No wonder, as Manon writes Sophie, the hours 
galloped by in his society, and M. de Sainte Lette 
seems to have felt for the eager, intelligent girl that 
indefinable yet most definite sentiment which it is 
the privilege and the consolation of the autumn of 
life to feel in its fulness. 

There is a wistful sweetness, a sense of evanescence, 
a dim foreboding of separation in the friendship of 
the very young and the old, "Why did you come 
into the world so late?" "Why could you not have 
waited for me ? " the old and young unconsciously 
ask each other. Manon's two friends were lost to her 
soon after she had learned to know and depend upon 



146 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

them. Sunstroke carried oJfF M. de Boismorel after 
an illness of only a few days (September 13, 1776), 
and M. de Sainte Lette died at Pondicherry in 1778- 
79. He had left a heritage to Manon in M. de Seve- 
linges, whom he had presented to her. They mourned 
Sainte Lette together, exchanged manuscripts, criticised 
each other's writings, for M. de Sevelinges had also 
coquetted with letters and corresponded for some 
time. M. de Sevelinges was melancholy, lonely, and 
sentimental. He possessed that delicate taste which 
Diderot remarked was the result of remarkable sense, 
delicate organs, and a melancholy temperament. 
Manon was pleased and flattered by his observations 
on her compositions. Indeed, the Sage and Sainte 
Lette had already surprised her by urging her to write, 
to choose a literary genre, and to develop and perfect 
it. "If I were a man I would do so," was Manon's 
reply to these encouragements. 

Meanwhile she continued to chat and meditate on 
paper, though her time for so doing was filched from 
sleep and exercise, as she tells Sophie (December 25, 
1776). "You find it strange that I write to you al- 
ways at one o'clock in the morning. The details of 
my daily life will tell you how I pass my time. At 
this season I never rise until nearly nine o'clock; the 
morning is spent in household tasks; in the afternoon 
I sew, thinking hard all the time, and inventing any- 
thing that I please, verses, arguments, projects, etc. 
In the evening I read until supper-time, which time is 
not fixed, as it depends on the return of the master [of 
the house], who, always out during the day, with no 
regard for his affairs, leaves me too often to answer to 



BEREAVEMENT AND NEW FRIENDS 147 

all comers who wish to see him on business. He comes 
home generally at half past nine, sometimes at ten 
o'clock and later. Supper is soon finished, for when 
there are few dishes, when one never speaks a word 
and eats fast, meals cannot last very long. Then I 
take the cards to amuse my father and we play piquet. 
During the intervals I try to make talk; laconic an- 
swers cut it short. I turn my skein to catch up a bit 
of thread, I toil but in vain. Time passes, eleven o'clock 
strikes, my father throws himself on to his bed, and I 
go into my room and write until two or three o'clock." 
In June, 1777, the Academy of Besan^on offered a 
prize for the best essay on "How can the education 
of women make men better ?" Manon found the sub- 
ject attractive, and wrote a discourse which she sent 
to the academy. There were nine competitors, among 
them Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. None of the papers 
quite filled the conditions, so the competition was ad- 
journed until the next year, when neither Mademoiselle 
Phlipon nor the author of Paul et Virginie was rep- 
resented. Manon's essay was reviewed and criticised 
justly and ably by M. de Sevelinges, whose notes 
she greatly prized and sent to her girl friends. To some 
extent he began to take in her life the place left sadly 
vacant by the death of M. de Boismorel. Manon 
was intellectually lonely. Her heart was unoccupied, 
financial ruin was before her, and her vision of pure 
and disinterested passion had proved a fata morgana; 
her relatives, though kind and affectionate, inhabited 
another planet mentally. Madame Desportes, in 
whose house assembled the most congenial people 
of Manon's acquaintance, was always making matches 



148 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

for her, presenting potential husbands to her, and 
urging her to marry. Manon's cousins, the Trudes, 
were not intellectually stimulating. The husband, a 
manufacturer of mirrors, adored respectfully and dis- 
tantly, yet most jealously, his wonderful, clever kins- 
woman, and bored her to extinction almost in conse- 
quence. Madame Trude was the Parisienne we have 
agreed to call typical. She combined a deep sense 
of the hollowness of the world with a passion for 
its futilities. She contrived to be truly pious and 
extremely coquettish synchronously, never missed a 
mass or a ball, and would pass three hours before her 
glass after sitting up all night with a sick friend. She 
would weep all the morning over her husband's rough- 
ness or neglect, laugh and sing all the afternoon, and 
dance all the evening. Neither of these people ever 
opened a book, or possessed an idea in common with 
the cousin they both loved. Association with them 
was like playing with grown-up children. 

In this dearth of kindred minds M. de Sevelinges's 
companionship grew very precious to Manon. His 
letters were the loopholes through which she looked 
out on the world of intellectual activities. The prac- 
tical M. Phlipon, who indulged in too many extrava- 
gances himself to permit any in his daughter, soon 
objected to a correspondence that cost several cents 
a day in postage-stamps. Manon rebelled against 
having her outlook walled up; she therefore begged 
her uncle Bimont to receive M. de Sevelinges's letters 
for her at Vincennes. The good abbe, willing as one 
of Shakespeare's priests to oblige a lady, forwarded 
the letters under his own hand. He had great con- 



BEREAVEMENT AND NEW FRIENDS 149 

fidence in his niece, none whatever in his brother-in- 
law, and he regarded M. de Sevelinges as an ordinary 
suitor, rather old for Manon, a little too well born, 
a little too poor, to please M. Phlipon, but desirable 
in many ways. 

Manon did not undeceive the amiable abbe, and 
the epistolary chat ran on smoothly until, in spite of 
his fifty-five years and his two grown-up sons, M. de 
Sevelinges fell in love, pallidly and waveringly, with 
Manon. Her dowry had shrunk to a pittance, his 
income was too small to support a second family with- 
out impoverishing his children. He therefore sug- 
gested to Manon, whose existence was becoming daily 
more and more precarious and unhappy through her 
father's disorders, that they should form a union like 
those of some notable early Christians, a marriage of 
mental communion and sympathy. Manon, who 
afterwards described this arrangement to Sophie and 
to M. Roland, had, without loving him, grown very 
fond of the sensitive, courteous gentleman, and asked 
nothing better than to become his daughter under 
the name of wife. Her radiant visions of happiness 
had been dimmed by painful acquaintance with the 
darker side of life. La Blancherie's defection and his 
impossible book, her father's dissipation, two or three 
unpleasant experiences, had somewhat tarnished her 
ideal of man, and she esteemed herself fortunate in 
becoming the lifelong friend of a philosopher who 
was also a gentleman. 

But there was a vagueness, a mysterious reticence 
about M. de Sevelinges's proposal that was disturbing 
to confidence. Manon's frankness did not encounter 



I50 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

equal candor. She was puzzled, then suspicious, and 
the correspondence languished. One day she was 
called to the shop to see a customer in the absence of 
her father. She found there an elderly gentleman 
who ordered an engraved seal. There was something 
strangely familiar in his voice and appearance, but 
it was not until he had gone that Manon realized, in 
a bewildered way, that the customer was M. de Seve- 
linges in disguise (November i, 1778). Far from being 
touched by this romantic escapade of her ambiguous 
suitor, Manon was shocked and annoyed. She realized 
the dangers of despising the defenses of conventionality. 
She felt also that M. de Sevelinges had forfeited his 
dignity by this clandestine visit. Her own self-respect 
suffered through the suspicion that he thought such 
concealment could be agreeable to her. It never oc- 
curred to her that her adroit arrangement for receiv- 
ing his letters might suggest further enterprises sub 
rosa to an experienced man of the world, who, "like 
the poor cat i' the adage," stood hesitating on the brink 
of a decision. His action decided Manon, however, 
and put her on her guard. Still, she did not break openly 
with him until after her betrothal to M. Roland, when 
she gave the coup de grace to their moribund corre- 
spondence in a letter that is a model of kind severity. 
The young girl who ventured outside the stockade 
of convention had to be prepared for an occasional 
attack, and sometimes even a blow. Manon had 
counted too much on the rectitude of her intentions 
and her conviction that frankness might be substituted 
for prudence. As it was, she returned from this little 
sally into the open with no more harm than an added 



BEREAVEMENT AND NEW FRIENDS 151 

distrust of men and their professions. Her early ideal 
was being battered into a different shape by harsh 
experience. She was learning that straight thinking 
does not necessarily imply clean living, and that the pos- 
session of the wit to know does not furnish the will to 
do the right, and was in consequence disposed to look 
reverently on any one who united these qualifications. 
She realized that philosophy, like devotion, had its 
hypocrisies and its TartufFes; therefore, she always 
anticipated with pleasure the visits of a friend of the 
Cannets, who they assured her was a sage in con- 
duct as well as in belief. 



CHAPTER VIII 

ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE 

This M. Roland de la Platiere, inspector of manu- 
factures, bearer of a letter from Sophie, had presented 
himself to Manon on January ii, 1776. "He is an 
enlightened man, of blameless life, to whom one can 
only reproach his admiration for the past at the ex- 
pense of the modern, which he undervalues, and his 
weakness for liking to talk too much about himself," 
Sophie had written of him. Manon was busy with a 
letter to her friend when M. de la Platiere called. She 
received him en neglige ^ in white dimity short gown 
and ruffled petticoat, her unpowdered hair turned up 
under a big cap. She had expected a sage — she saw a 
tall, lean, yellow man, of some forty odd years, al- 
ready slightly bald. His address was good though 
somewhat formal, and his simple, easy manners allied 
the politeness of the well-born to the gravity of the 
philosopher. This gravity was neither forbidding 
nor severe, for when he spoke his regular features be- 
came animated and expressive, and a shrewd smile 
transformed his thoughtful face. His voice was deep 
and his diction, though piquant, was harsh. *'An ex- 
terior more respectable than seductive," thought 
Manon, whose eyes were full of the vivacious, glowing 
face of another philosopher of half M. de la Platiere's 
years. But the latter had dwelt so lately with the 
rose — he had just left Sophie — that Manon welcomed 

152 



ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE 153 

him with timid cordiality, blushed, stammered, and 
listened with pretty deference to his opinions on Ray- 
nal, Rousseau, Voltaire, travelling, and, of course, the 
government. The girl was too fluttered to appear 
well; she regretted it naively to Sophie, fearing that 
she had not justified her friend's report of her. Never- 
theless, M. de la Platiere asked permission to come 
again, which she accorded gladly: "Nous verrons s'il 
en profitera.^* 

He did profit by it, but the second visit was less 
agreeable. Manon had a bad cold. Papa Phhpon played 
watch-dog, a tribute to the personal charm of the caller, 
and grew impatient and fussy as the visit lengthened; 
Manon was nervous and annoyed by her father's rude- 
ness, and "was more stupid than the first time." M. 
de la Platiere laid violent hands on her idols. BufFon 
was nothing but a charlatan, his style was only pretty, 
and as for the Abbe Raynal, his history was not philo- 
sophical, it was a novel, only fit for toilet-tables. 
These heresies startled Manon. She confesses, how- 
ever, that she does not prize Raynal quite so much 
as before, and is growing suspicious of Buffon — "I pick 
them over more." The philosopher was evidently as 
independent as she was in his opinions. They agreed 
better about the ancient writers, while regretting 
that "modern history does not show those touching 
revolutions where whole peoples struggle and combat 
for liberty and the public good." Patience, my friends, 
you may yet see this affecting spectacle ! 

By May, Manon had learned to appreciate the men- 
tal rectitude, sound judgment, and chastened good 
taste of M. de la Platiere's literary criticisms, as well 



1 54 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

as the variety and extent of his information. In June 
she dreamed of him, and was sorry not to know 3.ny- 
thing about him. In July she gently resented Sophie's 
criticism of him, and in August she accepted the cus- 
tody of his manuscripts and the responsibility of their 
disposal in case he should never return from a long 
ItaHan journey. M. de la Platiere dined at the 
Phlipons, with Sainte Lette two days before he left 
Paris. Good-bys were gayly said, and the traveller 
asked M. Phlipon's permission to embrace Manon; 
it was accorded, and though the ceremony was more 
solemn than tender, Manon graced it with a blush. 
**You are happy to go away," said Sainte Lette in 
his deep voice, "but hasten your return in order to 
ask as much again." 

The inspector's Italian tour was a long one. Dur- 
ing the eighteen months that he was absent from France, 
Manon had ample leisure to study the papers left in 
her care, and to form a very definite opinion of their 
author. Travels, reflections, projects for future works, 
personal anecdotes, incidents, and observations, jotted 
down roughly without any pretense of arrangement, 
all bore the impress of a strong character, a stern ideal 
of duty, and, above all, ceaseless mental activity. 

For M. de la Platiere had also been prodigiously in- 
dustrious in his economy of time and use of oppor- 
tunity. And his opportunities had been wrested from 
a contrary fate. If the sight of a good man struggling 
with adversity is a noble spectacle for gods, the in- 
spector of manufactures had contributed largely to 
the entertainment of Olympians. Born with many 
advantages, the perversity of destiny, that vengeful. 







J. M. ROLAND DE LA PLATlfiRE, INSPECTOR OF MAXUFACTIRES 
AT LYONS 

Engraved by Lemoine in 1779 



ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE 155 

uninvited fairy godmother who so often intrudes at 
a birth-feast, had by some trick or turn changed them 
to stumbhng-blocks in the way of achievement. 

Jean Marie Roland de la Platiere, born in the manoir 
of Thizy (called Theze to-day), baptized the 19th of 
February, 1734, was one of the ten children of Jean 
Marie Roland, the elder, and Damoiselle Therese 
Bessj^e de Montozan. The Rolands were an old 
family (even if we disregard a vague ancestor believed 
to be a man-at-arms of Charles VII), and begin 
their line with the definite Nicholas Roland, inhabi- 
tant of Thizy-en-Beaujolais, who in 1574 married a 
certain Dame Gabrielle Mathieu. We do not know 
if like the Prince Charming and the Beautiful Prin- 
cess of fairy-tale they lived happily ever afterwards, 
but they certainly had many children, and the chil- 
dren achieved position and honor. Such picturesque 
titles as "Seigneur de la Place," *Trieur," "Ecuyer,'* 
** Grand Pe'nitencier," "Prevot des Marchands de 
Lj^on," "Conseilleur au Parlement de Paris," "Baron 
de la Tour," "Chevalier de Saint Louis," "Capitaine 
exempt des Cent Suisses du Roi," pleasantly enliven 
the family-tree. That of noble Damoiselle de Mon- 
tozan was even richer in such decorations, and one of 
its branches had been grafted on to the trunk of the 
Choiseuls. The damoiselle had aristocratic tastes, 
played high, kept an open house, and loved company, 
with the usual result. When Jean Marie Roland, the 
elder, died, his heir, Dominique, was obliged to sell 
the manoir, the big town house at Villefranche, and the 
domain of La Platiere at Thizy. The Rolands, how- 
ever, still kept the name of La Platiere, which they 



156 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

transferred to the Clos of Theze, some miles from 
the town of Villefranche, which still belongs to the 
family. Five of the ten Roland children had died. 
Dominique and his three younger brothers had all be- 
come churchmen, when to the youngest one, Jean 
Marie, was offered, at the age of eighteen, the choice 
of going into business or becoming a priest. He de- 
clined both careers, and deciding to study manu- 
factures, he went to Lyons, then a centre of the 
linen trade. Two years later he travelled on foot to 
Nantes to take ship for the West Indies, but was pre- 
vented from sailing by a hemorrhage from the lungs. 
M. Godinot, a cousin of the Rolands, who was in- 
spector of manufactures in Rouen, offered the young 
Jean Marie a position there, which he gladly accepted, 
and began his life's work: the acquisition of a thorough 
knowledge of manufactures, not only in France but 
in foreign countries as well. 

His zeal and intelligence made him many friends in 
Rouen. Besides his technical studies and work in 
the factories, he applied himself to science, mathe- 
matics, chemistry, botany, and even drawing. His 
capacity and industry recommended him to Trudaine, 
the so-called "ministre du commerce" who promised 
him the first vacant position of importance, and mean- 
while sent him to Languedoc (1764), where he found 
both commerce and manufactures "in a horrible state 
of ruin and commotion." Here he first realized the 
extent and the importance of his work, its intimate 
relations with natural products, with nature herself, 
as well as to sister industries, and its close ties with 
society, law, government, and neighbor nations. In 



ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE 157 

Rouen, Roland, as history calls him, was a diligent, 
patient student; in Languedoc he became an energetic 
and enthusiastic economist. "The zeal of an inspec- 
tor, Hke his knowledge, should find its limits onl}^ when 
there remains no more good to do," he wrote just be- 
fore he fell ill from overwork. 

Trudaine, reluctant to kill the willing horse, then 
offered Roland the inspectorship of Picardy, which 
he accepted (1766). This was at once a comfortable 
and an important position, for Picardy was the third 
manufacturing province in France. But to Roland 
no post would ever be a comfortable one; he was too 
active-minded, too bent on improving and reviving 
the national industries. Picardy was in a ferment; 
greater and smaller interests were in collision, and new 
decrees and interfering parlements were fomenting 
disturbances. Home manufactures had been per- 
mitted by a decree of 1762 to the peasants, and the 
merchants and factory owners of Amiens were in open 
rebellion in consequence. They complained that all 
the standards of excellence had been lowered by this 
injudicious hberty of production, and that the quality 
of the goods had deteriorated. Roland soon discovered 
that the fires, robberies, and murders that afflicted 
the city were due entirely to the misery of the people, 
caused in its turn by the indefinite freedom accorded 
to industry, which had degenerated into utter hcense. 
**We must give complete liberty in taste, the choice 
of stuffs, the arrangement of colors and designs; on 
the contrary, we must be very rigid about everything 
that extends and assures consumption, like lengths, 
widths, and quaHties," Roland decided. How he com- 



158 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

promised, how he pacified, soHcited, argued, and 
pleaded, he has himself described at greater length 
than I can follow here. As he defended the work- 
man and protected the poorer and smaller producers, 
he was respected and beloved by the people, and, 
very naturally, disliked and dreaded by the great 
merchants and middlemen. A meddling, scribbling, 
criticising Jack of all trades, who hobnobbed with 
every master workman in the province, knew every 
factory, inspected every bleaching-field, learned every 
process, and who, instead of jogging along in the old 
rut, was constantly suggesting improvements, calling 
for new processes, and inviting conservatives to ad- 
mire and imitate foreign inventions — such was Roland 
in the eyes of the gros bonnets of Amiens. 

Fortunately their hostility was impotent to check 
his investigations or his ameliorations. He went often 
to Paris to keep abreast of scientific discovery; he 
made long trips through France to visit her industrial 
centres, and followed them by foreign tours through 
Holland, Flanders, Switzerland (where incidentally he 
visited Ferney and dined with Voltaire), England, 
where he examined the new spinning-machine, Ger- 
many, where in the great fairs of Frankfort and Leipsic, 
the meeting-place of "Occident and Orient, he found 
people of all nations and merchandise of all kinds." 
There Roland conceived the idea of great international 
exhibitions of arts and industries, an idea which was 
realized more than half a century after his death, and 
for which he has never been honored. 

Roland's accounts of his toils and travels are a val- 
uable chapter in the history of French manufactures, 



ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE 159 

and are interesting to the general reader. Everything 
that he examined was noted, measured, and carefully 
described, always with a view to the improvement of 
the home product. "Everywhere I collected patterns 
and samples of the stuffs I had seen; everywhere I 
noted dimensions, prices, time, place, road and trans- 
portation expenses, and calculated the difference in 
foreign wages and moneys . . . this time, as always, 
I brought back bales and volumes; this time, as before, 
I opened them both to all. Samples, tools, machines, 
methods, processes, notes, everything, I offered for 
the improvement of our factories and our commerce 
with as much ardor as I had collected them." This is 
not overmodest, but Roland's assertions are corrobo- 
rated by his contemporaries and fellow workers. These 
reports are aids to appreciation of the reforms of Tur- 
got, and strongly suggest that if they had not been 
opposed the Revolution would have come in a milder 
guise. 

During the industrial pilgrimages Roland, backed 
by Trudaine, kept up a running fight with the munici- 
pality, the merchants, and the Chapter of Amiens. 
Always protecting the liberties of the workman against 
the encroachments of the employer, he added to his 
cares a campaign against the tyranny of the Chamber 
of Commerce, the Municipality, and the royal agents 
over the manufacturers, whom they considered as 
inferiors and excluded from the local government. 
Not contented with these reforms, this indefatigable 
combatant of abuses attacked the monopolies, and 
even the immemorial rights of the Chapter, who owned 
the only fuller's mill in this manufacturing town of 



i6o MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

fifty thousand souls, and refused to allow a second 
one to be built ! The retirement of Trudaine (1777) 
resulted in the victory of the Chapter and the dis- 
comfiture of poor Quixote-Roland. He was more suc- 
cessful in the improvements he introduced in machin- 
ery, tools, and goods, notably the manufacture of 
cotton velvet, and under his inspectorship the number 
of shops in Amiens trebled. In spite of the enmity of 
the rich and ruling class in Picardy, his researches and 
their results made him many friends. He was an 
honorary member, associate, and correspondent of 
several academies in Rome, Paris, MontpeUier, and 
many other French towns, and his writings were quoted 
and respected by his fellows. One of his suggestions 
has become a world-wide reality and the grandest 
of modern festivals — the international industrial ex- 
hibition, as already noted. 

In spite of his tireless labors in his profession, Roland 
had found time to become not only a well-informed 
but a cultivated man. He was as famiHar with the 
liberal philosophy of his day as with its belles-lettres 
and its history. He was a lover of Italian poetry and 
of Latin literature. His taste was pure, though rather 
austere. He was a man of sentiment also, and from 
his busy life romance had not been excluded. This 
rigorous, rather brusque, decidedly combative man of 
affairs, with his firm grasp on the realities of existence, 
was not without imagination. He possessed an inner 
life of tender memories and proud aspirations. Long 
before he had won the position of inspector, long be- 
fore he could be described as bald and yellow, he had 
loved and been loved by a young Rouennaise, a Made- 



ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE i6i 

moiselle Malortie, who had died in 1773, and who, 
renamed CleobuHne by Roland, had been mourned in 
prose and verse by her betrothed. Later there had 
been several fond adventures, notably a tragic episode 
with a young Italian widow, proving that the observ- 
ing traveller had not confined his attention to ma- 
chinery and manufactures. The brilliant and coquettish 
Henriette Cannet was deeply interested in the grave 
inspector, and followed with some anxiety the progress 
of his intimacy with Mademoiselle Phlipon. 

The later portraits of Roland, painted and engraved 
during his ministry in 1792, show a high-nosed, deli- 
cate-featured elderly gentleman, a kind of benevolent 
ascetic in expression, with the unmistakable air of 
the philosopher and the idealist. His loosely flowing 
hair is characteristic of the reformer of all ages, and 
his frilled shirt is open at the throat in a decolletage 
that at sixty is pleasing chiefly to the wearer. But 
the gentleman who presented Sophie's letter to her 
friend sixteen years before was a very diff'erent person. 
Join-Lambert discovered not long ago an engraving 
from a drawing of Lemoine's, dated 1779, that pre- 
sents a truer image of the inspector of Amiens. This 
M. de la Platiere, simply and conventionally dressed, 
with the high stock and cravat, the tight-fitting coat, 
and the powdered hair neatly rolled at the sides and 
confined at the back by the black solitaire^ is a man 
of the world. The well-cut face is amiable though 
alert-looking, and suggests that the original of the 
portrait did not lack a certain quiet distinction. 

M. de la Platiere was, however, far less conventional 
than his portrait. He possessed an uncompromising 



1 62 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

sincerity that many times had proved a lion in the 
path of success. His clear vision, his close grip on 
facts and their relations, made polite deceptions and 
the little tactful arrangements of truth by which favor 
is gained, and superiors flattered and managed, dis- 
tasteful, almost impossible, to him. He justly censured 
the hobbles and fetters by which French trade was 
partially paralyzed. His valuable reports and in- 
telligent suggestions were couched in terms of un- 
compromising candor. He disdained also to conciliate 
the varletry and underlings, whom even now in a re- 
publican France it is wise to propitiate. Very naturally 
Cerberus unsopped fell upon the reformer in the rear. 
Roland's ruthless veracity qualified the popularity he 
won by the unequalled prosperity he brought to Amiens. 
He was censor as well as philanthropist — a kind of 
Cato Franklin. Still, it is wise to remember in reading 
hostile criticism of him that Roland was an innovator, 
and was consequently constantly accused of pride, 
conceit, overconfidence in himself, as well as a lack 
of loyalty and patriotism, because he pointed out errors 
and blunders in the administration, and often ad- 
vocated adoption of foreign processes and inventions. 
Self-reliance, even a touch of arrogance were not un- 
pleasing to Mademoiselle Phlipon, disgusted with 
the supple spines of shopkeepers. Roland's high valua- 
tion of his own services and labors, his attachment 
to his own opinions, his exacting temper, seemed to 
Manon so many proofs of his independence of char- 
acter. She was inclined, perhaps, after her recent 
disappointments, to overvalue energy and industry 
in man. To her, frankness implied courage; Roland's 
contempt for formalities and conventions, his cham- 



ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE 163 

pionship of the poor and helpless, and his patient en- 
durance of discomfort and privation, she counted among 
the manly virtues she v^^as temperamentally qualified 
to appreciate. That he was peevish and exacting, 
alternately irritable and morose from constant over- 
work and poor health, she only learned later. 

As it was, in the disenchantments and desolation 
of her life he figured as the virtuous sage, and we know 
that Manon's ideal man had long been a philosopher. 
After the eclipse of La Blancherie, the death of M. de 
Boismorel, the departure of Sainte Lette, and the mys- 
tification of M. de Sevelinges, Manon's thoughts centred 
in M. Roland. He and M. Sainte Lette had spoiled her, 
she wrote Sophie, by giving her a dangerously high 
standard of comparison. When M. Pictet, the Genevese 
writer, congratulated her on having refused a very 
eligible suitor because he was indifl^'erent to her, she 
reflected that "she never found her own ideas and 
tastes except in men of a certain age who had corrected 
the errors of youth, and, above all, in those who had 
known misfortune and the vicissitudes of the world." 
The news of Roland, his hasty yet suggestive notes 
in his travels, brought to her from time to time by 
his brother Pierre, who was the Prior of Cluny, stimu- 
lated her imagination and occupied her thoughts. 
"Qu'il est heureux de parcourir cette belle Italie," sighed 
the stay-at-home as she read of Roland's wanderings. 
They possess interest even for the reader of to-day 
who glances over the six small volumes with their long 
title: Lettres ecrites de Suisse, d'ltalie, de Sicile, et 
de Malthe (sic) par M. . . . avocat au Parlement, a 
Mile. ... en 1776, 1777, 1778. Amsterdam, 1780. 

Many of these letters were not sent in sequence to 



i64 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

Mademoiselle Phlipon. The epistolary form, so pop- 
ular in the letter-writing age, was given to Roland's 
rough notes after his marriage when they were ar- 
ranged for publication with the assistance of Madame 
Roland. M. Join-Lambert says of them rather severely : 
"Z^ mariage, auquel ces confidences litter aires out con- 
tribue, a peut-etre He pour Roland son plus reel succes 
d'auteur^ Yet it would be difficult to-day to find a 
manufacturer or worker in applied science who could 
produce such an all-round book of travel. Roland 
had many interests; the extent of his observations 
was not curtailed by the exactness of his information 
or the definite object of his travels. He made time 
for general sightseeing and for visits to celebrities. 
Though his work was primarily an account of the 
industries of the countries visited and of agricul- 
ture in its relations to commerce, historical and lit- 
erary associations and the fine arts found place in 
it, as well as reflections on government and institu- 
tions. 

The eighteenth-century traveller in Italy, were he 
Doctor Burney, Arthur Young, or Goethe, was, of 
course, bound to form and express opinions on the 
fine arts. They wore curious mental blinders, those 
intelligent folk; invariably bent the knee before the 
shabbiest bit of antiquity, and averted a scornful eye 
from the noblest mediaeval monuments. Roland erred 
in good company when he sought out the temples of 
Sicily and ignored the churches of Palermo. He was 
more impartial in his judgments of men. Freethinker 
as he was, he saw much to commend in the mild, 
tolerant rule of the Pope, for "Under it a sage could 



ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE 165 

live always in security." Roland's relationship with 
the Choiseuls, then influential in Rome, was probably 
most useful to him where influence counts for so much. 
He had several interviews with Pius VI, whom Roland 
praised for his amiable simphcity and courtesy, and 
who ''a su deposer ses grandeurs et s* entretenir avec 
un etre son semblable, sans lui rien faire perdre de la 
dignite de rhomme." (Lettre XVIII, Tom. V.) 

Roland's personal dignity has sufi'ered somewhat 
in the letters of his travelling companion, Bruyard, 
who was appointed by the minister to assist him in 
his notes and observations. Like those of many young 
assistants, Bruyard's criticisms of his chief are severe. 
These animadversions vary in gravity. Roland de- 
sired to be addressed as Bias, but at the same time he 
generously bestowed on the carping young neophyte 
the equally honored name of Thales. It was as Bias, 
by the way, that he corresponded with Mademoiselle 
Phlipon, who, more modern or more modest, replied 
under the name of Amanda, instead of that of Diotima 
or Hypatia. These innocuous diversions were popular 
among both the lettered and the illiterate. Practical 
unlearned folk, like Queen Anne and the great duchess, 
addressed each other more prosaically as Morley and 
Freeman. Apparently these good people extracted 
as much pleasure from such puerilities as we do from 
hyphenations and mysterious, mediaeval spellings of 
commonplace praenomens. 

Bruyard's second indictment was far more serious. 
Roland was scant of luggage, sparing of fresh linen. 
This is a grave charge, and forecasts the untidy re- 
publican of '92, the minister of the interior affronting 



i66 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

the court by his shoe-strings in place of buckles, and 
his wide-brimmed hat. 

As to Roland's mind — the young critic admitted 
that he had brains, but observes that when he met 
some one who had more, he was mute, all ears, and 
later repeated what he had heard as though it were 
original. "He knows all books, their authors, and 
their printers, and seems a savant to a librarian. He 
has travelled a great deal — he is a naturahst, or thinks 
he is, for what isn't he ? Finally, I am a dolt, an ig- 
noramus, I know nothing, and he knows everything." 
Perhaps the animus of this paragraph may be explained 
by this coda. The valet's testimony may be valuable 
but he does not see much of the hero, after all, and is 
as prejudiced as the enthusiast, only in a different way. 
The youthful censor is not more favorable to Made- 
moiselle PhHpon: "He [Roland] often read her letters 
to me, qui annoncent une demoiselle de beaucoup d' esprit, 
mais d'un esprit exalte, et qui tout en gemissant d'etre 
nee du sexe feminin, en laisse cependant entrevoir les 
faiblesses." So much for Manon. He was not easily 
deceived, this young Bruyard. 

It was perhaps in an exalted mood, or more likely in 
a lonely hour, that one day, some time in the summer 
of 1777, Amanda wrote the peripatetic Bias a certain 
"charming little letter," possibly after La Blancherie 
had proved himself truly "feather-headed," or Papa 
Phlipon had been unwontedly trying. Until then 
Roland had made all the advances. It was he who 
had paid long and frequent calls, undismayed by close 
parental attendance, and who had practically made 
Manon his literary confidente and executrix — no small 



ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE 167 

mark of confidence in one who had friends among well- 
known men of letters. Now it was the girl's turn. 
Her letter, received in Rome, was not answered until 
some time later. Roland also was engaged in an ex- 
perimental affair of the heart with an accomplished 
widow of Leghorn. From this adventure he emerged 
trailing his wing and dragging his claw, in sore need 
of renovation. Apparently Mademoiselle Phlipon's 
*' char mante petite lettre^' arrived opportunely to poultice 
his lacerated breast and salve his wounds. He carried 
it with him to his home in Villefranche, where he laid 
by for repairs after his strenuous joumeyings, for a 
traveller's life was not padded with comforts. "Leav- 
ing Paris in 1776, I returned in 1778 after an absence 
of eighteen months. I had again traversed Switzer- 
land, travelled over all of Italy, crossed the Alps three 
times and the Apennines three. I had visited Sicily, 
both the towns and the country. I had pushed on 
to Malta. Nine times I took ship. Three times I 
was in the most imminent peril,^and in danger of death. 
I slept thirty nights on bare boards. I was eighty 
nights without undressing, twenty-two consecutively, 
only occasionally changing my linen in the daytime. 
I bore incredible fatigues, rushing about, studying 
all day long, often lacking the necessities of life, and 
writing at night. The passion for seeing and learn- 
ing bore me up. I reached home, fell down like a 
stone, and remained several weeks between life and 
death." 

It was during his convalescence that Roland an- 
swered Manon's letter. He was still ill, depressed, 
weak in body and in soul. He spoke darkly of seek- 



i68 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

ing death, of a mysterious sorrow, of the hollowness 
of things terrestrial, and the comfort to be derived 
from the letters of a clever and charming young friend. 
Roland, the Spartan, the strong and self-sufficient 
Roland, evidently wished to be petted. The wounded 
hero is not less irresistible than the conquering war- 
rior. Manon dressed his hurts with deft, gentle fingers. 
Roland's numbed heart stirred under her soft touch, 
expanded, finally overflowed. A correspondence of 
which one hundred and twelve letters remain records 
the Hats d^ame of two exceptional beings, as well as 
the rise and progress of a singular affair of the heart. 
Manon's first letter in reply to Roland's plaint is an 
outburst of girhsh enthusiasm. I think the page of 
the Memoirs devoted to her courtship and marriage 
would have been written less summarily if Madame 
Roland could have glanced over Mademoiselle Phli- 
pon's love-letters again. Alas ! the fires are as eva- 
nescent as the snows of yore. 

Manon replied warmly and instantly to the bat- 
tered sage's appeal for sympathy (October 17, 1777). 
She reproached him for waiting until he was less mel- 
ancholy to answer her letter. She had thought him 
so tranquil and happy, while she was passing the hard- 
est year of her life, except the one when her mother died. 
Would you believe it, yesterday she was writing to 
Sophie: "I spend my life with indifference, and I would 
lose it without pain." "This expression escaped me 
in a moment of sadness, but I feel that friendship 
makes me change my language." She wishes to see 
the rest of his notes, and she ends by a confidence. 
Roland, if he returns to Paris before he answers her 



ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE 169 

letter, must glide lightly over what she has written 
of her sorrows. 

A very pretty entree en matiere. Apparently Roland 
thought so, for he sends his appreciative young friend 
the remaining manuscript of his travels. Her acknowl- 
edgment of the receipt of it is more didactic than 
enthusiastic. These notes included an account of his 
suit to the intractable widow, and Manon found much 
matter in them to increase her misanthropy. Roland's 
ItaHans were not estimable. "One must escape to the 
heart of Switzerland or the banks of the Thames to be 
reconciled with one's kind." To these generalities a 
little lesson is tacked on. "I am glad that you have 
traversed — a tempest, and I congratulate you with all 
my heart. It seems to me that each trial while exer- 
cising the strength of the soul should increase it; from 
this point of view misfortune becomes an advantage 
to those who know how to bear it. Therefore, I am 
far from pitying you at present." 

The key is lower, and the rather curt criticism of the 
longed-for notes is the reverse of enthusiastic. Still 
the friendship grew apace, for (August 12, 1778) Roland 
begs Manon to conceal the frequency of his visits from 
her old friends the Cannets; Manon writes to protest 
against this dissimulation and the reserve and petty 
deceits it imposes on her natural openness. However, 
the lady doth protest too little, and her letter is rather 
an expression of the pleasure she feels in sacrificing her 
candor for Roland's comfort than a plaint of her in- 
fidelity to Sophie. 

A letter from Amiens of December 30, 1778, con- 
tains the explanation of Roland's request. Henrietta 



I70 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

Cannet loves him. It is to spare her that Roland 
hides his assiduities to her friend. The poor girl is ill 
— in fear of death. She talks with Roland, says many 
**choses honnetes"; her grieved brother tells him some- 
thing that shows they still have hopes of him, "but she 
— she knows well that — nothing — nothing — nothing," 
Roland writes enigmatically. This must have been 
mournful news for Manon, yet she gives but a few 
lines to it in her long answer (of January 3, 1779) to 
Roland's letter. Their intimacy was greatly increased 
by this secret between them, and poor Henriette's dis- 
appointment drew them closer together. Nevertheless, 
Roland was prudent, and in a guarded letter, written 
to thank father and daughter for some New Year's 
gifts, he retreated from the position he had seemed to 
occupy. Perhaps this was only a formal note to be 
read aloud to Papa Phlipon, Who knows ? Habitual 
frankness makes strange compromises on certain occa- 
sions. As time ran on, the expected occurred, and the 
Memoirs record briefly that during the winter of 1778- 
79 Roland told Manon what she probably knew long 
before he was conscious of it — that he loved her. The 
girl confessed an equal flame, as her contemporaries 
would have put it, but lamented that marriage between 
them was impossible. Her lack of a suitable dowry, 
and her father's extravagance and misconduct, which 
might at any time break out into open scandal and 
increase the social inequaUty between her and Roland, 
were her reasons — reasons which the lover accepted 
with rather suspicious resignation. As love was out 
of reach, the philosophic pair agreed to forego it, and 
cultivate in its stead a kind of "amitie amoureuse," 



ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE 171 

A sentimental friendship is a beautiful but fragile 
possession. Love is an admirable actor, but for short 
seasons only. The doctor's hood (and is not Abelard 
there to prove it ?) becomes him vastly, and he can 
fold his wings close under the scholar's cloak, and 
carry his torch like a sage's staff as well as he can 
wear a hundred other guises — but not for long. Love 
thus austerely draped and disciplined is a very comely 
godhead, devotion to him a very pretty and dehcate 
form of asceticism — and Manon prided herself on act- 
ing ^' en heroine de delicatesse.'^ 

Perhaps the sweetest season of a mutual passion is 
the budding time of love, when "amor puer est,"' and 
thrives on such dainty fare as sighs and looks, when 
every advance is a dehcious conquest of audacity over 
timidity, when a stolen ribbon is a treasure, and a 
hand-clasp an event. It is precious and fugitive as 
those rare days when the vernal flame of spring foliage 
is shut fast in the exquisite closed shells of the young 
leaves and the folded burgeons of the new blossoms. 
A warm rain, a few hours of genial heat, and all this 
lovely reticence and discreet promise flowers into frank 
fulfilment. 

The devotees of friendship were peacefully happy for 
some months. They read and studied together, they 
wrote each other long letters, they exchanged verbal 
endearments in Italian, and quoted from sugary 
Amintas and Pastor Fidos. They confidently declared 
the tender sympathy that bound them was the one 
joy in an otherwise unpleasurable universe. Then one 
day in April something happened. What ? From cir- 
cumstantial evidence it may be inferred that "the val- 



172 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

orous and erudite Shepherd MeHndor" had saluted his 
pastorella with an ardor more pastoral than platonic, 
without the permission and the presence of Papa Phli- 
pon, and the shepherdess was crying. Her pretty, 
unreal idyl was spoiled, shattered like a broken Dres- 
den-china eclogue. Love's opening wings had ruffled 
his sober cloak, and his torch was aflame again. At 
least as much may be inferred from Manon's letter of 
April 22: "It seems that I am not satisfied with my- 
self . . . and what is worse, you are the cause of it. 
I feel the truth of one of your remarks only too well, 
that the wrong-doing of your sex towards mine is all 
our fault." She will be responsible for them both in 
the future; she will keep their friendship pure. "I 
confess that your vivacity intimidates and frightens 
me. It would rob our intercourse of that happy con- 
fidence, that liberty, that noble and touching intimacy 
that are the fruits of virtue. It seems to me that 
friendship is not so ardent in its caresses. It is sweet, 
natural, and innocent." 

Roland's reply showed him more moved than Manon, 
but impenitent. On the contrary, he reproaches 
Manon for the coldness and the firmness for which he 
praises her, also, though grudgingly. The knowledge 
of her worth excuses, nay, justifies his transports. He 
complains of her aloofness, her desire to continue to 
enjoy the peace of a quiet conscience. " Tu pourrais 
done etre heureuse sans que je fusse heureux. This 
thought wrung my heart. Ah ! thou knowest but little 
of the ardor of my soul, and thou dost not seem to 
realize how much thou hast repressed it. Speak to me, 
then, of the tranquillity and the triumphs of thine. . . . 



ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE 173 

I have neither metaphysics to display nor antitheses 
to make. I have only a heart which is no longer 
mine to offer thee. It is frank to excess; it loves 
thee. That is all that I am worth, and it is enough 
for me to be worthy of thee in this way." All this 
is written for the first time in the intimate second 
person singular. This is Roland's first love-letter, as 
unreasonable, as artless, as boyishly triumphant as 
though it were written years before to Cleobuline. It 
was a most satisfactory declaration of love, but not in 
the least a proposal of marriage. Roland offered his 
heart but did not mention his hand. 

Manon, as she wrote Sophie, was not an Agnes. 
She had been trained in a harsh school. Experience 
was her mistress; M. de Sevelinges's enigmatic wooing, 
her own self-deception about La Blancherie, poor don- 
key that she had generously draped in a lion's skin, 
were severe lessons. She had been too confiding; had 
counted on meeting her own candor and openness in 
her friend. Because she had played her game of 
friendship with cards on the table, she had expected 
equal fairness in her partner. She had again been 
roughly disillusioned. Her father, too, had served as 
an unconscious Helot to this young Spartan. She had 
close under her eyes a heartwringing example of the 
disintegration that follows yielding to impulse. She 
was doubly guarded by imagination as well as experi- 
ence; was familiar with the language, the unconscious 
arts, the self-deception, the subterfuges, of passion. 
Richardson and Rousseau were her initiators, and their 
Clarissa and Julie were at once sympathetic compan- 
ions and horrible examples. The novels of sentiment, 



174 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

far from blinding her or distorting Manon's views of 
life, were an admirable substitute for emotional expe- 
rience. So much has been written of the ravages of 
light literature, the disastrous effects of its perusal on 
the callow mind, that one is tempted to linger on its 
educational value, en passant^ and its uses as a sub- 
stitute for actual tarnishing experience. Manon was 
too well versed theoretically in the sophistry of pas- 
sion, the specious reasoning of a yielding heart, not 
to be on guard at once on the receipt of Roland's letter. 
His own writings, as well as those of Rousseau and 
Richardson, had furnished her matter for caution. 

Among Roland's papers there was one addressed to 
the obdurate Italian widow on the relative blameless- 
ness of a liaison with a young girl compared to the 
heinousness of a love-affair with a matron. The Italian 
lady held the more usual opinion, and Roland devoted 
several pages to confuting her. Perhaps they were in 
Manon's mind when she replied to Roland's declara- 
tion. If his was a confession of love, hers was the 
confession of faith of an ardent young creature whose 
noble passion for truth and justice has suffered no 
compromise with conventions. This letter, in spite of 
its careful phrasing, is the spontaneous utterance of a 
generous heart. The young Stoic's severe self-disci- 
pline, her impassioned pursuit of the finer issues of Hfe, 
told in this difficult hour as the muscles of the trained 
gymnast stiffen to meet a sudden strain. 

Manon's happiness was at stake. Youth was flying, 
life was narrowing and darkening all around her. This 
one man, who had amid mediocrity and pettiness 
seemed to her both an exception and an example, 



ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE 175 

was slipping down from the pedestal on which she 
had placed him. Roland, the sage, the wise, kind 
friend, was sinking into the mass of ordinary, selfish, 
greedy mankind. She could not easily consign him 
to that category. The one comforting reflection that 
remained was, Roland had misunderstood her — most 
ancient apology offered by loving women for the men 
who held them lightly. She would make her position 
very clear, trace the rise and progress of her feelings, 
explain her theory of conduct. Surely, then, without 
reproaches or complaints, he would realize how much 
he had been mistaken, and would judge and condemn 
himself. If there is a certain lawyer-like conciseness 
in this exposition, a firm, clear reasonableness that 
proves the fever in her veins had not reached her head, 
there is also a tender appeal to Roland, not to forfeit 
her confidence, to be for her the friend she can trust 
to defend her against her own weakness, if need be. 
In spite of elevation of style, between the smoothness 
of flowing periods we can divine the hurried throbs of 
a lonely heart, as deeply wounded in its affection as in 
its pride. 

"You have laughed at my sermon, dread to hear my 
complaints. I am sad, discontented, and ill; my heart 
is oppressed. I am crying, but my few burning tears 
do not relieve me. I do not understand myself, or, 
rather, when I do it is to blame myself, and to tell 
you once and for all what I am and wish to be always." 
A succinct survey of Manon's emotional and intellec- 
tual life then followed. Her solitary childhood, her 
studies, her religious doubts and philosophical opin- 
ions, her ideals of duty, are swiftly and simply touched 



176 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

upon, a prelude to a more intimate review of her pres- 
ent situation. " Feeling deeply the obligations implied 
by the holy names of wife and mother, I resolved to 
assume them only for a being worthy of my entire 
devotion. Among those who sought it one only, of 
whom I have spoken to you (M. de Lbl.), deserved my 
heart. For a long time I kept silence, and it was only 
when I realized our impossible situation that I spoke, 
to beg him to leave me. I have since then had reasons 
to congratulate myself on this resolution, which at the 
time was inexpressibly painful to me. Many changes 
have altered my situation in life, but I have, in spite 
of them, persisted in my determination to sacrifice 
everything but my ideal. My fortune has lessened, 
but my pride has increased. I would not enter a 
family that did not esteem me enough to consider 
itself honored by allying itself with me, and I should 
be indignant with any one who in marrying me thought 
he was doing me a favor. Naturally enough, with 
these opinions, I have counted upon a single life as 
my lot. In this estate my duties would be fewer and 
less sweet, perhaps, but not less severe and exacting. 
I looked upon the charms of friendship as pleasant 
compensations; I desired to enjoy them with the de- 
licious abandonment of confidence, but you are lead- 
ing me too far; it is against this that I try to defend 
myself. I saw in your strong, energetic, enlightened, 
and experienced mind the stuff for an ideal friend; I 
delighted in regarding you as such, and adding to the 
gravity of friendship all the feeling of which an afi'ec- 
tionate nature is capable. You were moved by this, 
and you awakened in my heart an emotion against 



ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE 177 

which I beheved myself armed. Then I did not veil 
it; I described it unreservedly, and I expected from 
your generosity the help that I needed. But far from 
sparing my weakness, you daily became more enter- 
prising, and now you dare to ask me the cause of my 
embarrassment, my silence, and my fears. Monsieur, 
I may become the victim of feeling, but the plaything 
of any one, never. You must have met in society 
many women a thousand times more lovable and in- 
teresting than I am who proved to you that the attrac- 
tion of pleasure was strong enough to make them 
judge leniently of an amiable weakness, and the fugi- 
tive attachment that caused it. They can yield in 
turn for those who, one after another, possess the art 
of charming them. Brought up in seclusion, I may be 
rustic and shy, but I cannot make a pastime of love. 
For me it is a terrible passion, that would possess my 
whole being and influence my whole life. Give me 
back your friendship or fear to force me to see you no 
more." (April 23, 1779.) 

To this appeal Roland replied diplomatically. He 
instantly returned to vous and to mademoiselle. He 
was hurt and indignant. His intentions were inno- 
cent. He was no vile beguiler of maidenly affections. 
He justified himself by remarking that his frankness 
was greater than Manon's, and exercised earlier in 
their acquaintance than hers. With her his heart 
was always on his lips. As to his outburst: "Deeply 
moved, I believed that without crime I was sharing 
feelings which you accuse me of, and blame me for 
possessing. I do not analyze your principles, I respect 
your person. I may become unhappy through having 



178 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

known you, but I would die before I could insult you. 
I do not pretend that you consider my happiness; it is 
enough for me not to trouble yours, and if it is too 
deeply affected by a sentiment that enslaves me, and 
I am to see you no more, I will try to forestall the fatal 
moment when you propose to proscribe me." 

Did Manon feel rather flat when she read this miffed 
answer to her tender heroics ? The Sieur Roland, 
accused of being too enterprising, borrowed the meth- 
ods of a country boy, who, when asked to take his 
arm from the back of a girl's chair, complies with an 
air of shocked surprise at her unworthy suspicions. 
The resignation with which Roland proposed to antici- 
pate Manon's edict of exile was not reassuring. He, 
too, was inchned to make terms. His notion of the 
privileges of friendship was more liberal than hers, and 
her repulse mortified more than it hurt him. 

Manon's next letter was, therefore, devoted to sooth- 
ing and coaxing him into good-humor. "O, my 
friend, why trouble a vision that could be so beautiful. 
... I am in a frightful state. I do not know what 
I am writing. How you have hurt me ! My friend 
(I call you this sweet name with a melting heart), else- 
where you may find less rigor but not more tender- 
ness." She was afflicted by the thought of his un- 
happiness, still more by his barbarous assumption 
that she could be happy while he was unhappy. He 
was invited to satiate himself with her despair and to 
contemplate her distress. If he dares to continue to 
be miserable, "fear to become so to a degree that you 
dare not face." She was again tender, sweet, and 
despairing, and Roland, manlike, forgave her for being 



ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE 179 

right because she was unhappy in consequence. Her 
letter brought a penitent lover to his knees. "My 
friend, my sweet friend, forgive me; 1 bathe your letter 
with my tears — let them efface my offense; forget my 
weakness; consider only my repentance." His situa- 
tion is frightful, also, and will be until he learns that 
she still loves him, and loves to love him. He has 
added to her troubles. Dreadful thought ! Why is 
she so tormented } Why does she not tell him ? Does 
she not remember the proposal he made to her ? Is 
not he cherishing it in his heart ? Will she not answer 
it clearly and in detail, giving other reasons for her 
refusal than those she has already advanced, and 
which he has considered? " Songe que je te vois sans 
cesse, et plus encore dans Vavenir que dans le passe. 
Songe. . . ." (April 24, 1779.) 

A hard-hearted Dulcinea would have been touched 
by this letter, and Manon was not marble. **If you 
had loved me less you would not have been guilty; 
the wrongs and errors of feeling may afflict, but they 
never offend." In plainer speech, it is easy to forgive 
the havoc caused by one's own charms. No, Manon 
cannot add other reasons to those she has already urged 
against Roland's proposal, "because I have no others. 
I might perhaps wish to have stronger ones to see you 
overcome them." She cannot enter into details; her 
poor bonne Mignonne is dying, and Manon is her 
nurse. In a letter written at five o'clock the next 
morning beside the sick-bed the details demanded are 
given and Manon's financial situation clearly explained. 
She has in her own right fourteen thousand francs. 
After they have been made over to her she will remain 



i8o MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

with her father, paying her board, and keeping house 
for him. To take possession of her dowry was the 
only means of saving it for him as well as for herself. 
Papa Phlipon did not appreciate the Fabian method 
of helping folk in spite of themselves; he had worried 
the notary, complained to the neighbors, and tried to 
persuade himself and others, that he was a rococo 
Lear, the victim of fihal ingratitude. Bonnemaman 
Phlipon, the Besnards, and the little uncle forced 
papa's hand — one can easily imagine the endless gab- 
ble, the discussions, disputes, and argumentation that 
grew out of the situation. In the midst of it the faith- 
ful Mignonne left hers. "I have always wished to 
die with you, mademoiselle," said the poor woman, 
pressing Manon's hand; "I am content." Then the 
little uncle carried off Manon, worn out with grief and 
watching, to Vincennes (April 27). 

On the 6th of May she returned to Paris, where she 
found an ultimatum from Roland, that "they had been 
cruel enough" not to forward to her, and in which the 
prudent sage, for once treading circumspection under- 
foot, ordered rather than entreated Manon to say yes 
or no to his proposal. Their present modus vivendi 
was too torturing; there must be no more shilly-shally- 
ing, no more conditional mood. Will she marry him ? 
She must decide now and quickly. Observations on 
general topics will not count as an equivalent. Yet 
he finds time to regret Mignonne. "/^ fleure avec tot 
sur la cendre de cette bonne dme : eh ! ce nest pas de son 
malheur; fenvierais de finir comme elle. C'est la seule 
douleur que f aimer ais a prevoir dans ton cceur.** (April 
30> 1779.) 



ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE i8i 

Happy Manon ! She read, she wept, she tried to ex- 
press herself, she stifled, she threw herself upon his 
breast, to remain there all his; at least, so she told him 
in a rapturous paragraph. She knew no other reasons 
against their marrying than those already given, 
"which he has conquered," she wrote, apparently for- 
getting that in triumphing over her unselfish scruples 
he had vanquished them in the leisurely Fabian man- 
ner, cunctandoy but her Te Deum is as prompt and 
joyous as though they had been overturned by assault. 
"My pride equals my passion; in any other situation I 
would have offered myself to you; in mine you have 
had to oblige me to forgive your advantages. Why 
cannot I send you my letter on the wings of the wind .? 
Adieuy mon ami; be happy and dispose of me to be- 
come so." (May 6, 1779.) 



CHAPTER IX 

COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 

Manon's little bark might now be considered ha- 
vened in still water, with the promised land of matri- 
mony in sight. But it was to toss in storms for many 
months more. Roland desired their engagement to 
remain secret, and Manon acquiesced as before, exer- 
cising her own love of openness by writing him the 
history of her past tender passages with La Blancherie 
and De Sevelinges. She had to send to Sophie for the 
documents in these cases, and invent a pretext for so 
doing. Her way was not rose-strewn. Sophie was 
vaguely jealous and suspicious; she felt that Manon 
was less communicative, less affectionate, less absorbed 
in her than she used to be, and reproached her friend, 
while Roland was retrospectively jealous of his prede- 
cessors in his betrothed's thoughts, and actively jeal- 
ous of L. F., as he is called in the letters to Sophie, the 
giovane in those to Roland. This young man, of about 
Manon's age, was the pupil and apprentice of her 
father. He lived with the Phlipons, and soon sacri- 
ficed at Manon's shrine, a hopeless but fervent devo- 
tee. His goddess treated him leniently, like a great 
boy, scolded and laughed at him, lent him good books, 
administered medicine and advice when he was ill, 
mended his clothes and his manners, and tried to keep 
him from following in her father's descending foot- 
steps. 

182 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 183 

It was incomprehensible to Roland that she could be 
so kind to one who was madly in love with her, who 
raged and pleaded, threatened to kill himself and 
Roland, and who sometimes diluted his sorrows in dis- 
sipation. No man, but every woman, will understand 
the girl's complex feelings towards this unhappy boy, 
and comprehend her indulgence and commiseration. 
L. F.'s perfect disinterestedness, and his frank aban- 
donment to passion, threw into high relief the pru- 
dence and uneasy self-love of Roland. ^^ Ah ! mon amiy 
comme on aime a vingt ans !'' Manon heedlessly wrote 
him, hardly a grateful reflection to her cautious be- 
trothed. Nor was the project of the Besnards calcu- 
lated to soothe him; they found an easy solution of the 
Phlipons' domestic difficulties in a marriage between 
Manon and L. F., an "inept" notion which Roland's 
fiancee nevertheless was obliged to combat. 

An avowal of her engagement would have greatly 
lightened her cares, but Roland held her to her prom- 
ise. His own affairs were not prosperous. He was 
discouraged and harassed by opposition to his reforms, 
and often balked of results by the inertia or the hos- 
tility of his superiors. His digestion was wretched, his 
nerves exasperated, and yet his demands on his strength 
were unremitting. We are apt to assume that nerve- 
strain and overwork are peculiar to our crowded life, 
but the tasks of the past, unrelieved by material com- 
forts and unlightened by time-saving appliances, ex- 
acted prolonged mental tension, and consumed vital 
energy as ruthlessly as our own enterprises. 

Roland's letters, shorter and fewer than his be- 
trothed's, occasionally betray fatigue and irritability. 



1 84 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

His natural and not unamiable jealousy of Manon 
manifests itself in a peculiarly unlovable way: in sharp 
criticisms of her friends and admirers, and, above all, 
in animadversions on her father's behavior. He found 
fault with Manon herself for what was inevitable in 
her situation: for practically becoming her father's ser- 
vant, for doing kindly offices to sick neighbors. He 
assumed a tone of aggravating superiority to all her 
little world. Much of this ''picotage'' (pecking), as 
Manon called it (in postnuptial days), was really in- 
spired by solicitude for her health, and the spirited girl 
received it with submissive sweetness, and answered 
it with apologies and explanations. Firm and rather 
imperious with her own family, to Roland she was all 
tender deference. She learned early in the game of 
love that irrefutable arguments and eloquent pleading 
were ineffective compared with an affectionate mes- 
sage, or a little wail of loneliness or longing. Her let- 
ters are not often playful, her situation was too strained 
for sportiveness, but they are ingenious in their divers 
expressions of affection. "I love you, you are dear 
to me, tell me so in your turn," was never set to more 
varied melodies. This literary art, if literary art it is, 
had become so natural through constant exercise that 
feeling flowed instinctively into form. The child had 
lisped in clear-cut prose, the maiden loved in lucent 
musical phrase. It was said of Madame Roland that 
she had the art of making all that she did appear to be 
the work of nature, as if such consummate art were 
not in itself largely nature's gift. 

In any case, her letters must have been a consolation 
and a stimulus to a morose and doubting lover. Ro- 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 185 

land meantime had begun to take his engagement seri- 
ously. He hired a house at Amiens, close to the clois- 
ter of Saint Denis, which was used as a cemetery; it 
would have seemed a lugubrious residence to an out- 
sider, but **it will be the cottage of Philemon and 
Baucis," **you can make a temple of it," Roland 
wrote. More prosaic details followed: he had enough 
house and personal linen for two years, table-silver 
for eight persons, two soup-spoons; no other house- 
hold stuff. Manon*s trousseau preoccupied him. She 
must dress well; at least like other people. It was 
well enough for him to play the Quaker. "I can be 
what I really am; it is enough for me to be what I 
wish to be; but you, my wife, must be what you should 
be." The contemner of irksome conventions pre- 
served them for his womenfolk. This imperfectly 
emancipated reformer held that he could cast off his 
cravat, but madame must retain her neckerchief. 
To this mademoiselle yielded a charmed assent. She 
was glad to reduce her wardrobe to the minimum, and 
planned to sell her mother's jewels, "for since she had 
hoped to possess Cornelia's some day she had just 
despised them." Her Roman met Roland's Greek 
(May 11). While waiting for the temple and the 
Gracchan ornaments, however, it was indispensable 
to conciliate a father who was Roman only in his 
severity. 

When his daughter's dower was finally wrung from 
the protesting M. Phlipon, he incontinently invited her 
to leave his house. Terrified at the scandal this would 
cause, Manon wrote Roland, who suggested, as a last 
move, that she might tell her father that she was 



1 86 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

affianced, and expecting to be married speedily. This 
magnanimous concession was clogged by a hard condi- 
tion — she must not reveal the name of her betrothed, 
but explain that for family and business reasons the 
bridegroom-elect was obliged to remain incognito for 
the present. 

Manon in reply urged that her father would cer- 
tainly suspect him of being the coy lover, and that the 
secret would be as well kept if M. Phlipon were trusted 
wholly. By this time Roland had begun to waver and 
to regret what he had advised. His letter practically 
retracting this permission arrived too late; it was 
crossed by a rapturous missive from his fiancee. 

"Kiss my letter, tremble with joy; my father is 
satisfied, he esteems you, he loves me. We shall all 
be happy ! Paix, salut, amitie, joie par toute la terre. 
. . . Mon cher maitre, listen to my story. ... I was 
saying then — my faith, I don't know what I was say- 
ing." A calmer narrative of facts followed these in- 
troductory transports. Tactful Mademoiselle Des- 
portes, la precheuse, as the lovers called her, prepared 
the recalcitrant papa for this revelation. After her 
gentle emollient sermon to soften his heart, came the 
coup de theatre. The salon door was thrown open, and 
Manon threw herself, weeping, at her father's feet. 
Neither Greuze nor Rousseau could have arranged a 
more touching scene for a people with whom emotion 
spontaneously seeks dramatic expression. 

"Overwhelm me with your anger, if I have deserved 
it," sobbed the kneehng girl, "but do not hate me!" 
M. Phlipon was very naturally silent and bewildered. 
Manon was stifled with sobs. Mademoiselle Desportes 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 187 

began to explain, but the surprised M. Phlipon for once 
took the centre of the stage. This was his only mono- 
logue in the long domestic drama in which he sustained 
so unsympathetic a role: 

"Your proceedings are always very strange," he said, 
addressing himself to Manon. "I can forgive your de- 
mand for a settlement that the law authorizes you to 
make, but which wounds and offends me, which proves 
that your attachment to me is no longer what it was, 
and that it has given place to ingratitude. To wish to 
remain with me, and yet to arrange your affairs as 
though you intended to leave me, is contradictory. 
All your motives displease me. If you had more 
worthy ones, I should judge differently, but in that 
case, why have you concealed them?" 

"What !" answered Manon warmly. "If I had some 
reason that honor made me keep secret, would you 
consider keeping it a crime.''" 

"What secret could you keep justly from a father ?" 

"One that had been confided to me under a promise 
of secrecy, because certain circumstances made it im- 
possible to tell it." 

"This ambiguity does not impose on me; I want to 
see clearly into this; give me a good reason if you 
have it, or do not torment me any more." 

Manon, who by this time had recovered her wind, 
replied by a plausible allocution: "You have declared, 
father, that our settlement would appear perfectly 
natural if there were any question of my marrying. 
That is exactly what it is for; that's my secret; you 
will soon know my reasons. Some one whose prefer- 
ence honors me, and flatters you, I am sure, has proved 



1 88 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

his esteem for me by making his wishes known to me. 
His only object was to learn what mine were, and if he 
could count on them. Some delicate precautions to 
take with his own family prevented him from speaking 
to any one, even from making his declaration to you. 
He swore me to inviolable secrecy. From that time I 
felt that we ought to put our affairs in order. I thought 
it was better to arrange them between you and me. 
I resolved to induce you to do so. On the other hand, 
I did not hide the smallness of my fortune. I said 
that I should soon know how much it was, for my 
coming of age would remind you to tell me, but that 
a happiness that would straiten your means would 
be far from perfect for me. The delicacy and disin- 
terestedness that had guided this person in all his 
ideas inspired him to answer that he was as deeply 
interested as I was in your welfare and comfort, and 
that he left to you the use of what would insure them. 
Believing as much in his probity and generosity as in 
his other good qualities, I made him a confession that 
I expected you to confirm some day with as much joy 
as I felt then. You may guess of whom I am speak- 
ing; it is useless to name him. At least, my cousin 
will permit me not to do so before her. . . ." 

M. Phlipon, relieved, softened, overjoyed, caught 
the orator in his arms, and Manon wept on his breast 
"the sweetest tears she had ever shed in her life." 
Papa whispered Roland's name in his daughter's ear, 
and then assured Mademoiselle Desportes that his 
future son-in-law was all that he could wish for, and 
that in her choice he had a new proof of Manon's wis- 
dom. He promised that though her fortune was mod- 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 189 

est, she should have all that belonged to him one day, 
as he should never marry. These praises and prom- 
ises were offered in a tone of such sincerity and fond- 
ness that Manon was convinced that he would bless 
her union with Roland "with all his heart." 

She did not forget to slip in a word of warning to 
her fiance between her ecstasies. In a few days Ro- 
land would receive a formal letter from her, to which 
he must send an equally discreet reply to be shown to 
papa. Her father had asked her if Roland knew that 
she was going to tell him of their engagement, and 
she had answered that she was authorized to do so. 
This avowal and showing him a letter from Roland 
would affirm M. Phlipon's confidence, and insure 
future peace. Roland will advise her, and she will 
submit her opinion to his. These prosaic arrange- 
ments made Manon grow lyrical again: "My loving 
friend, I owe you all my happiness. How transported 
you must be ! You give me all that is dear to me; you 
give me back a father's love, you fill my heart with 
all the sweetness that nature, virtue, and love can 
bring to it. . . . And it is to you whom I respect, 
whom I esteem, and whom I cherish more than any- 
thing else that I owe these blessings. Surely one never 
dies of joy, since I feel all this and am still living." 
(June 27.) 

To these effusions Roland replied dryly and coldly 
(June 29). She had forced his hand, she had told 
his secret; her delicious wooing phrases, her enchant- 
ments, could not juggle away the disagreeable fact 
that her common, dissipated old father was now in 
their confidence. "Do not write so many pages to 



190 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

justify or excuse something done; I shall not think of 
it any the less, and I shall not speak of it again." 
Only a man very much concerned with his own dignity, 
very jealous of his authority, could have answered a 
cry straight from the heart with such frigid pettiness, 
to which poor Manon replied, in spite of Roland's 
prohibition by a justification of her confession. At 
least his liberty has remained quite unfettered. "I 
have not arrogated to myself your right to announce 
your intentions, or to hasten the time when you pro- 
pose to do so." 

This pained Roland and he expressed his distress at 
the same time, forbidding his bonne amie to add to it 
by alluding to its cause (July 3). He maintained an 
injured attitude all through the summer. M. Phlipon 
was a perennial source of complaint; his bad health 
was also a cause of offense. How will he be able to 
get on without the constant care that his daughter is 
obliged to give him ? What does he intend to do ? 
What arrangements has he made for the future ? 
(August 5) 

Manon, now general drudge and occasional sick- 
nurse, leaves her pots and kettles, puts down her 
needle, and answers gently, reasonably, with a noble 
patience, these querulous questionings. She shows a 
maternal indulgence to each fretful, carping arraign- 
ment. Pauvre ami, how ill and worn he must be to 
be so cross and exacting, how much need he has of 
love and consideration. The more fractious Roland, 
the more amiable she. That sweetness (of which she 
wrote when a girl of fifteen) "that men are accused of 
loving because it is so much needed in dealing with 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 191 

them," stood her in good stead during this dreary 
stage of her Hfe-journey. 

But though Griselda was amiable she was sad, 
and her sadness penetrated Roland's hard self-love. 
Finally, he wrote to M. Phlipon, asking in good set 
terms for his daughter's hand, but still requesting se- 
crecy. M. Phlipon found the demand glacial, haughty, 
and even lacking in respect to his daughter. The re- 
quest for secrecy excited, not unreasonably, his suspi- 
cions; it was not in such clandestine manner that the 
tradesmen of the cite made their offers. Manon argued, 
coaxed, until he yielded an ungracious "He is a de- 
serving man, I admit. He suits you very well. Let 
things go on. I won't prevent them." This negative 
consent was all she could extract (August 29). When 
a little later the attack was renewed, he repulsed it 
with a dry "He was in no hurry to write to me, I am 
in no hurry to answer him; besides, you are not asked 
for in this letter. It is obscure. I don't understand 
it." With the obstinacy of a weak nature, he stood 
by this decision. Manon, pushed to the wall, used 
the last argument of women — hj^sterics. Frightened, 
not touched, he promised to write, but before doing so 
asked to see all the letters Roland had sent her since 
he left Paris. To her astonished question: "What is 
your motive in making such a demand ?" M. Phlipon 
answered airily: "It's a caprice that I have. If you 
refuse me this satisfaction, you can no longer count 
on me for anything." Such was his ukase, coupled 
with the request that she should leave the house. De- 
cidedly, he was not conformable, le fere Phlipon. To 
this proposed eviction Manon replied with dignity; 



192 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

*'I shall not go. You have no right to send me out 
of your house. I ought not to leave it except under 
a husband's protection, and I shall not leave it in any 
other way. I have not lived here for twenty-five 
years honorably and decently, to go away in a man- 
ner that will shame and disgrace yow." (September i.) 
Papa made no answer, but took "the key of the fields," 
and sedulously avoided Manon. 

Miserable days followed for her, bruised between 
the impact of two egotisms, her happiness depending 
on a father and a lover equally self-centred, who con- 
sidered their own susceptibilities as more precious than 
Manon's peace. Finally, the tears and prayers of 
Tante Besnard and the weakness following an attack 
of illness again softened the resolve of the terrible 
parent, and he consented to write an answer to his 
elusive son-in-law-to-be (September 4). 

"Mr.: 

"Questions of interest cannot certainly hurt the busi- 
ness in hand. My daughter has recently provided for 
them, having used the rights she acquired by coming 
of age three months ago to obhge me to give an exact 
account before a notary of the property of her dead 
mother. This business is now irrevocably settled. 
You have done me the honor, Mr., to write to me; I 
ought to have that of answering you. But first hav- 
ing asked my daughter to communicate certain things 
to me, that she has very dryly, and even, I dare to 
say, very roughly refused to do, this decides me to 
tell you with regret that she can freely enjoy the privi- 
lege of her majority to accelerate the termination of 
this affair." 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 193 

Truly a very impertinent and paltry answer to a 
rather stiff and condescending demand ! To the self- 
righteous Roland "it revealed a soul that he could 
not understand, and that filled him with horror." 
Imagine the feelings of King Cophetua, if, after hav- 
ing decided to honor the beggar-maid with his hand, 
her disreputable old father had received his royal 
request with a pied de nez. 

Roland could not avenge this insult on the dishon- 
ored head of the impossible M. Phlipon, but M. Phli- 
pon's child was convenient, and on hers were poured 
out the vials of Thales's just wrath (September 5, 
1779). The awful abyss between his family and a 
creature like Manon's father was suddenly revealed to 
him. He had tried to realize it before, but could not. 
What spiritual vileness, and what a horrible hand- 
writing! What baseness of character, what a low 
nature were betrayed in every line! Even the abbre- 
viation of "Monsieur" (common enough in business 
correspondence) was fraught with sinister significance. 
Roland plunged her father's unpolished stylus into 
Manon's naked heart, and then turned it round. "I 
cannot defend myself against an attachment that de- 
livers me up to you without reserve, and which even 
in this moment is graven on my heart with the deepest 
respect, but your father — 0, my friend, your father ! 
The very thought of him gnaws me. Black presenti- 
ments trouble and overwhelm me. His character, his 
conduct will become a living disgrace to my people, 
and will change their tender regard into a vulture that 
will ceaselessly devour my heart. No, my personal 
unhappiness would be nothing, but it is frightful to 



194 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND - 

think of your situation. I reproach myself for it with 
bitterness of self-disgust. I am oppressed with deadly 
sadness." 

Two days after a second vial was unsealed. Manon 
had been culpably indulgent to this lost soul of a 
parent. Her devotion to an unworthy object awak- 
ened Roland to his own lack of duty to his relatives 
in allying them with a Monsieur Phlipon. It also re- 
vives memories of their loving care of him when he 
returned, frayed and spent, from his wanderings. His 
contemplated ingratitude to them filled him with 
tardy remorse. His secretiveness towards them 
weighed on him. To lighten his heart he sends them 
Monsieur Phlipon's monstrous missive with an account 
of the whole wretched business (September 7). 

To this assault Manon opposed a saintly resigna- 
tion. Her filial virtue had furnished the scourge for 
her punishment. She released Roland from any en- 
gagement to her, congratulated him on his family ad- 
vantages, and herself on having been the means of 
recalling his obligations to him, approved his pro- 
ceedings, and ended by asking him to remain her 
friend always (September 9). Ten days later Ro- 
land answered Monsieur (or, rather, as the outraged 
writer addressed it vengefuUy, "Mr.") Phlipon's letter 
in a superior and stately manner calculated to infuri- 
ate the meekest of mankind. In it, while grinding 
Mr. Phlipon to earth, and expressing his esteem 
and respect for his daughter, Roland haughtily 
withdrew the offer of his hesitating hand (Septem- 
ber 19). 

All through September and October Manon wavered 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 195 

between her conviction that she ought to leave her 
father and seek some means of earning her living and 
her instinctive affection for her capricious parent, who 
at times was undeniably appeahng and attractive. 
Her struggles between prudence and generosity per- 
plexed and worried Roland, who remained untouched 
hy 2L manly and apologetic letter written b}^ the prodi- 
gal father in a remorseful moment (September 23). 
"Esteem and friendship remained to them," but neither 
seemed satisfied with these reasonable conditions. 
Roland discovered "that philosophy which he thought 
good for everything was good for nothing," and Manon 
found the path of duty rather tortuous, as well as steep 
and hard. Too sensitive and affectionate to follovr 
reason calmly, too logical and reflective to abandon 
herself to feeling, she appeared inconsistent and ca- 
pricious to a colder, more self-centred nature. 

The long struggle between reason and instinct finally 
ended in the sad victory of the former. Manon hired 
a small apartment in the convent of the Congregation, 
and went back to live with her old schoolmistresses, 
the nuns (November 6, 1779). 

Convents offered inexpensive and dignified retreats 
for women of small means who wished or were obliged 
to lead a simple Hfe aside from, though not outside of, 
the world. Orphaned girls with slender dowers, re- 
duced widows, decayed gentlewomen, took rooms in a 
religious house, where they received visits and enter- 
tained in a subdued way. Great ladies, who were 
other-worldly as well as worldly, retired to a nunnery 
for a retreat during Lent, or when in mourning. Some- 
times romance crept into the cloister and the heroine 



196 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

of a love-affair or a scandal was stealthily watched in 
chapel and garden by pupils and pensionnaires. 

The hard and worldly Madame de Boismorel had 
mourned the gentle *'Sage" in a fashionable convent, 
and Madame Recamier's receptions at the Abbaye 
au Bois are an example of the discreet yet animated 
social life that throve in semimonastic seclusion. 
This curious little world that mingled its gay chatter 
with the nuns' canticles, and the chypre of its casso- 
lettes with the mystic fragrance of incense, was humor- 
ously and amiably sketched by Victor Hugo in Les 
Miserables. Even now the tourist seeking Lafayette's 
grave, or he who follows the trail of Jean Valjean on 
the dark chase from the Gorbeau House to the nun- 
nery of the Petit Picpus, will find the modern counter- 
parts of these ancient lady-boarders strolling in the 
old walled garden and chatting in the convent parlor. 

The Congregation was a second home to Manon. 
There she literally fell into the arms of her devoted 
Sister Agathe, "the plaintive dove" of her school-days, 
and there, though lonely and sad, she enjoyed the 
tranquillity so lacking in the house on the Pont Neuf. 
Thrifty of her time and her money alike, Manon 
planned a rule of daily life after she had estabHshed 
her few penates "under her roof of snow," for she 
lodged very near heaven. Her expenses were calcu- 
lated to a sou. She bought and prepared her own 
food, and Spartan fare it was — "beans, rice, and pota- 
toes cooked with salt and butter" cost little money 
and small pains. She went out twice a week: once to 
visit her relatives, once to look after her father's 
wardrobe and household. She kept the early hours of 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 197 

the convent. The morning, after making her own 
toilet and that of her apartment, she devoted to geog- 
raphy and the ItaHan language, studies that she hoped 
to teach later. Then she took up a favorite book "to 
rest her mind" — Jean Jacques, Montaigne, or Horace. 
The afternoon was given to needlework (when she 
could resist the temptation to read) and a walk in the 
convent garden. Under the great lime-trees, where 
she used to stroll with Sophie's arm around her waist, 
she loved to dream, to remember, and sometimes to 
weep. Music and a brief visit from Sister Agathe 
filled the short evenings. There were a few calls to 
receive and return from the boarders in the convent, 
visits from friends at the grating, and occasionally a 
little musical party in one of the cells. 

Manon often spent whole days almost alone. "My 
taste for solitude is becoming a passion. In satisfying 
it I can think of you without distractions," she wrote 
the tepid Thales (December 4, 1779). The cessation 
of petty vexations and sordid anxieties lent her mental 
leisure to review the few joys of her brief betrothal, 
her bright visions of the future, now so dun and drab. 
Her young energy revolted against a passive accep- 
tance of dreariness. She would not resign herself to a 
flat and flavorless existence. She would fight, work, 
deserve felicity, even if she never attained it. In the 
peace of the dove-cote her affection for Roland, long 
dominated by lacerated pride and the melancholy 
realization of how much he lacked of the ideal lover 
of her maiden fancies, deepened, and grew in tender- 
ness and solemnity. In an atmosphere of consecra- 
tion to an ideal, of little daily acts of self-sacrifice, 



198 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

Manon, always impressionable, always vibratingly sen- 
sitive to any demand upon her, fell in love a second 
time. Thales, the philosopher, the impeccable wise 
man, was no more, and in his place in her heart was a 
weaker, erring, irritable person with some very infuri- 
ating characteristics, some disconcerting shortcomings, 
who in a mysterious way was more lovable than the 
sinless Sage of yesterday. To love him now that fate 
and Papa Phlipon had parted them forever seemed an 
act of devotion to Manon. Absence, which fires great 
passions and extinguishes little ones, also fosters illu- 
sions. Memory is a flattering painter when affection 
is at her elbow. Roland, unseen for many months, 
took on a different aspect; he never seemed more de- 
sirable than when he was inaccessible, and Manon 
was never so tender as when, apparently enfranchised 
by despair, she let herself go. She ceased to demand, 
and was content to bestow. Her letters, which had 
been explanatory or apologetic, but always sincere 
eflPorts to understand Roland's tactics, his wavering 
advances, and hasty retreats, changed in tone. To 
justifications and defenses succeeded idyls and elegies, 
confessions of love and longing. She frankly accepted 
the facts in the case. Her late suitor was not really 
separated from her by pecuniary embarrassments and 
social inequality, or even by the iniquity of M. 
Phlipon, but by his own lack of passion strong enough 
to burn away the barriers between them. He was not 
to blame; he loved her in the measure of his ca- 
pacities, and she was content to be the generous lover 
who kisses — metaphorically. Her situation was in 
some respects a trying one for a high-spirited girl. 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 199 

Her relatives considered her a victim of unrequited af- 
fection, abandoned by a cold and worldly lover. She 
accepted the role of Ariadne with perfect good temper 
and an utter absence of petty self-love. She had re- 
signed herself to being misunderstood. 

A friend (probably the same Madame Legrand who 
was one of Marie Antoinette's household) found Manon 
a place at court. The position was dependent on the 
whim of the Queen, and had been created for her 
amusement; it was, perhaps, that of lectrice, or reader. 
The young republican promptly refused it. The sur- 
prise and annoyance of her family and friends may be 
easil}^ surmised. Fate was disciplining Manon as the 
gymnasiarch of Epictetus trained the young athlete, 
fortifying her weakness, augmenting her strength 
through blows and struggles. Unconsciously, out of 
anxiety and disappointment and disillusion, the girl 
was applying a principle, evolving a philosophy which 
is the protest of the mind against the incoherence and 
cruelty of life. Like the artist who seeks to impose 
law on the disorder of nature, she opposed a mental 
harmony to the discord of "an opaque, impenetrable, 
miscellaneous world." To essay the subjugation of 
fate to the sway of will and the intelligence compels 
reluctant admiration even when it discourages imita- 
tion, and predicates much self-esteem and self-rehance; 
indeed, she possessed both, but her self-esteem was 
mitigated by a sense of personal responsibiHty, and 
was 3^oked with an impassioned loyalty to ideals. If 
her attitude was more Olympian than Promethean, 
and, consequently, far less sympathetic in her Memoirs, 
in her letters the torments and the gnawing of the 



200 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

insatiable bird were seldom absent. Those addressed 
to her timid and susceptible lover are frank capitula- 
tions. "Good-by, Pride." "Be thou man or illusion, 
I give myself up to the feelings you inspire in me that 
I foolishly believed I had repressed." "Come! Be 
forever under the name of friend all that thou canst be 
to the most tender and faithful heart." Safe behind 
the convent grating, reassured by distance and seclu- 
sion, Manon dared to woo as she would be wooed. 
Happy Roland ! one exclaims in reading them, to re- 
ceive such glowing missives ! But Thales, whose blood 
was surely chilled by the water which the Greek phi- 
losopher whose name he borrowed conceived was the 
vital principle, replied lukewarmly, evasively, to these 
delicious yet maidenly effusions. To Roland the state 
of his liver was far more preoccupying than the con- 
dition of his heart, and he answered Manon's chaste 
sapphics with a description of his last bilious attack, 
enrichedi with realistic details, or with prudent advice 
to conciliate her relatives, as the only real joys of life 
are to be found among one's own people. All Roland's 
letters are full of reference to his business perplexities, 
and sometimes his lack of funds. He was suffering at 
once from weak health, poverty, and a severe disap- 
pointment. In December he was tempted to resign 
his post. He had lost the protection of Turgot; Godi- 
not, his cousin and protector, had retired from the 
inspectorship of Rouen, and Roland fully expected to 
succeed him, but the position was given to a less able 
but more popular man. In addition to these causes 
of anxiety Roland was afraid of Manon, afraid of 
her empire over him, of her "tumultuous" tem- 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 201 

perament, of her strong will and her independent 
character. 

In spite of her professions, of the deference she had 
always shown him and his opinions, he divined the 
energy and persistence that underlay her apparent 
docility. He realized that she had managed her 
father, dominated her relatives, and mastered an in- 
subordinate and passionate lover. These were not 
guaranties of passive obedience to a nervous, suscepti- 
ble bachelor in deUcate health. Then, too, in spite of 
his own scorn of restraints, Roland adhered to the 
conventions that his age and nation imposed on young 
girls, and Manon had emancipated herself from many 
of them. The bonds of custom galled Manon's high 
spirit; the vast opportunities that Paris offered her 
for study and culture tantalized her. In a rebellious 
mood she wrote Sophie: ''Sometimes I am tempted to 
put on breeches and a hat to obtain freedom," and, 
again: "I ought to have been a Spartan or a Roman 
woman, or at least a Frenchman. Then I should have 
chosen for my country the republic of letters, or one 
of those republics where one can be a man, and obey 
only the laws. . . . Ah ! Liberty, idol of strong souls, 
aliment of virtues, for me you are but a name !" (Feb- 
ruary 5, 1776). Manon had enfranchised herself to 
a certain degree. Even before the death of Mignonne 
she constantly went out alone to walk, to church, or 
to shop. Disguised as a servant seeking a situation, 
she had gone to the lodging of her father's mistress to 
confirm her suspicions of his misconduct. Humbly 
dressed like a girl of the people, she had visited the 
poor and found it a dangerous proceeding. During 



202 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

her brief engagement, in spite of her affectionate pro- 
testations of submission, she had carried affairs with 
a high hand. Roland feared for his prestige. Could 
he maintain his superiority in daily contact with so 
much purpose } So he sought safety in flight and in 
avoiding contact with this invading personality. No, 
he could not visit Manon (as she suggested December 
13, 1779). He should only pass through Paris, arriv- 
ing late in the evening of the 28th of December; he 
expected to leave early the next morning to visit his 
brother, the Benedictine monk, at Longpont. He 
should not return to Paris until two weeks later. He 
was deeply affected by his disappointment and the 
conduct of those he thought were his friends; all things 
were awry with him; he feared that he was going to 
be very ill, but he cared Httle, he was tired of the 
wretchedness of this world, and was quite wilHng to 
do now what one must do some time, sooner or later. 
Of course this wail afforded Manon an opportunity 
to play the role, very earnestly and sweetly, of con- 
soler, and, of course, soon after Roland found himself 
in the nuns' bare little parlor before the grating, and 
behind it Manon, pale and tearful, "triumphed in her 
retreat," as the captive Roland sorrowfully acknowl- 
edged. She was so lonely and unhappy; she believed, 
or seemed to believe, that his family had arranged a 
marriage for him, and that he was hesitating as usual 
between his affection for her and his desire to satisfy 
them. "I need so much that you should be happy," 
she wrote him, the next day (January 20, 1780), that 
she could, like Regulus, beg him to ignore her own 
fate if his felicity required it. The next paragraph of 
her letter softens the sternness of her comparison: 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 203 

"Evening is the most favorable time for us to see 
each other, even on Sundays." 

Poor, prudent Roland ! He struggled no more. 
He again offered his hand formally through his brother, 
Dom Pierre, and a few days afterwards (February 4, 
1780) there was a quiet wedding at the church of 
Saint Barthelemy. The dear little Uncle Bimont was 
the officiating priest, and Selincourt, Sophie's brother, 
one of the witnesses. The bridegroom, having finally 
decided to sacrifice himself, was no niggard victim. 
In his marriage contract he dowered his wife with 
six thousand francs, in order to swell her scanty por- 
tion to a respectable size, though his own affairs were 
far from prosperous. 

Her courtship and marriage are laconically recounted 
in Madame Roland's Memoirs. ''Nearly five years 
[in reality three] after I had made his acquaintance he 
[Roland] made me a declaration of love. / was not 
indifferent to it, because I respected him more than any 
one I had ever known, but I had noticed that both he 
and his family were not insensible to appearances. I 
told him frankly that his suit honored me, and that I 
could consent with pleasure, but that I did not believe 
that I was a good match for him. I then explained 
to him unreservedly our financial condition. We were 
ruined. I had saved, by asking for a settlement from 
my father at the risk of incurring his dislike, an annual 
income of five hundred livres, which, with my ward- 
robe, was all that was left of the apparent affluence 
in which I had been brought up. My father was 
young. His indiscretions might tempt him to make 
debts, which his inability to pay would render dis- 
graceful. He might contract an unfortunate mar- 



204 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

riage, and add to these evils children who would bear 
my name in wretched poverty, etc., etc. I was too 
proud to expose myself to the ill will of a family which 
would not feel honored by an alliance with me, or to 
depend on the generosity of a husband to whom I 
should bring only vexations. I advised M. Roland, 
as a third person would have done, and tried to dis- 
suade him from thinking of me. He persisted; I was 
touched, and consented that he should take the necessary 
steps with my father, but as he [Roland] preferred to 
express himself in writing, it was settled that he should 
treat the matter by letter on his return home, and that 
during the remainder of his stay in Paris we should 
see each other daily. I considered him as the being 
to whom I should unite my fate, and I became at- 
tached to him. As soon as he returned to Amiens he 
wrote my father to explain his plans and wishes. 

"My father found the letter dry. He did not like 
M. Roland's stiffness, and he did not care for a son-in- 
law who was a strict man, and whom he felt to be 
a censor. He answered with harshness and imperti- 
nence, and showed his reply to me after he had sent 
it. / immediately formed a resolution. I wrote to 
M. Roland that the event had justified only too well 
my fears in regard to my father, that I would not 
occasion him further mortifications, and that I begged 
him to abandon his project. I announced to my 
father what his conduct had obliged me to do. I 
added that after that he need not be surprised if I 
entered a new situation and retired to a convent. But 
as I knew he had some pressing debts, I left him the 
portion of plate that belonged to me to meet them. 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 205 

T hired a little apartment in the convent of the Con- 
gregation, to which I retreated, firmly resolved to 
limit my vi^ants by my means. I did so." A short 
description of her ascetic life follows. I take up the 
narrative where Roland enters it again. "M. Roland, 
astonished and grieved, continued to write to me like 
a man who had not ceased to love me, but who had 
been wounded by my father's conduct. He came at 
the end of five or six months, grew ardent when he 
saw me behind the grating [in the convent parlor], 
where, however, I had kept a prosperous air. He 
wished me to leave the cloister, offered his hand again 
to me, and urged me through his brother, the Bene- 
dictine monk, to accept it. / reflected deeply on what I 
ought to do. I did not hide from myself that a man 
less than forty-five years of age would not have waited 
several months to try to make me change my mind, 
and / readily allowed that this had reduced my feelings 
to a degree which left nothing to spare for illusion. I 
considered, on the other hand, that this persistence, 
also the result of reflection, assured me that I was 
appreciated, and that if he [Roland] had conquered his 
dread of the incidental annoyances, which marriage 
with me might occasion, I should be so much the more 
convinced of his esteem, which I need be at no pains 
to justify. Finally, if marriage was, as I believed it 
to be, a stringent bond, an association in which gen- 
erally the wife takes charge of the happiness of two 
individuals, would it not be better for me to exercise 
my capacities and my courage In this honorable task 
than in the isolation in which I lived } " 



CHAPTER X 
DOM I MANSir—EUDORA 

Madame Roland's correspondence during the years 
that followed her marriage forms an almost comic con- 
trast to that of her girlhood. One would hardly be- 
lieve, looking over the letters of her early married life, 
that she possessed literary or intellectual interests. 
The large horizon of her youth narrowed to the walls 
of her house, her occupations to the copying and cor- 
rection of Roland's manuscripts, the care of her baby, 
and the training of her servants. This correspondence, 
however, fills a lacuna in her biography, as the Me- 
moirs pass very cursorily over this period of her life. 

The Rolands spent the first year of their marriage 
in Paris. They took furnished rooms in the Hotel de 
Lyon, in the rue Saint Jacques. Roland had been 
offered, and had accepted, a position in the govern- 
ment offices at Paris, to arrange a general recasting 
of the regulations that controlled the national manu- 
factures. He strenuously opposed most of these regu- 
lations, for, in spite of a few concessions, they were as 
hostile to the interests of the producers, and the prin- 
ciples of free-trade and open competition, as the old 
ones had been. This work very naturally excited and 
depressed him. A more satisfactory task was the 
revision of his letters on travel, and the rearrange- 
ment for publication of the monographs on divers in- 
dustrial and mechanical arts that he had already writ- 

206 



DOM I M AN SIT— EU DORA 207 

ten for the Academy of Sciences. These separate 
studies formed the preface to the great work, Le Dic- 
tionnaire des manufactures, undertaken the following 
year (January, 1781). 

All these enterprises implied hard labor, into which 
Manon threw herself with the zeal of a neophyte, 
for the most practical and advantageous move that 
Roland ever made was his redoubted marriage. By it 
he acquired a devoted and indefatigable secretary, a 
careful and economical housekeeper, a cheerful and 
loyal companion, as well as an accomplished and wor- 
shipful young wife. She was Roland's amanuensis 
and proof-reader, and often his cook and nurse, for his 
digestion was wretched and he was constantly ailing. 

No bride ever came to her husband more penetrated 
with the desire of self-sacrifice than did Manon, and 
none ever found more ample opportunity for its exer- 
cise. Roland was overworked, as usual, and he was 
daily exasperated by the frustration of his projects of 
reform. He was rigidly attached to his own opinions 
and intolerant of others' views; he was a stern task- 
master, exacting, meticulous, impatient; he was an 
illegible writer, and a prolix and voluminous anno- 
tator, without method in the arrangement of his notes. 
Yet his wife's devotion was unfaltering. Her humble- 
ness and her patience were matched by her industry. 
She, who had spent her leisure in the best literary 
societ)'^ of all time, now passed her days in copying 
and correcting articles on woollens, cotton velvet, and 
peat, with a seriousness and grave sense of responsi- 
bility that in later years she found amusing. "But it 
proceeded from the heart," she explains. "I revered 



2o8 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

my husband so absolutely that I supposed he knew 
everything better than myself, and I so dreaded to 
see a cloud on his brow, and he was so set in his opin- 
ions, that it was not until long afterwards that I gained 
courage enough to contradict him." 

The monotony of these tasks was relieved by a 
course of lectures on botany, given by Jussieu in the 
Jardin des Plantes. To an observer and a nature- 
lover like Manon, these conferences were a source of 
enduring pleasure, and in the following lonely years 
she made a good herbarium of the flora of Picardy. 
Through Jussieu the Rolands formed a friendship that 
lasted through their lives, and on his part long after 
their deaths, with Louis Bosc d'Antic, a member of 
the Academy of Sciences, and already known through 
his own researches, though he was but twenty-one in 
1780. He was the son of a Huguenot physician and 
had inherited, with httle else, his father's love of natu- 
ral science, his disinterestedness, and the friendship 
of the savants who had been D'Antic's companions. 
Louis had a good position in the post-office (Secretaire 
de rintendance des Postes), and devoted his few free 
hours to scientific study. Roland, then just beginning 
his Dictionnaire, became especially interested in this 
young scholar, who, knowing many people and many 
things, was so ready to serve his new friends. Bosc, 
unselfish and enthusiastic, was attracted and retained 
by the unique charm of Madame Roland, and the 
congenial pursuits of her husband. In Paris they saw 
each other daily, and when the Rolands went to 
Amiens their correspondence became ^'presque jour- 
naliere.*' Roland was always asking for a bit of in- 







M"' ROLAND. 



SO-CALLED PHVSIONOTRACE PROFILE OF MADAME ROLAND 
From a colored engraving lately acquired by the Musee Carnavalet 



DOMI MANSIT—EUDORA 209 

formation, or the verification of a fact, and madame 
added a few lines at the beginning or end of a letter. 
Imperceptibly she came to monopolize the writing, 
and transmitted her husband's questions and mes- 
sages. The Rolands' letters to each other were sent 
under cover to Bosc, even when they were of an inti- 
mate nature, partly because he could frank them, but 
also to keep him au courant. Perfect confidence and 
a close communion of ideas, the knowledge that the 
humdrum details of the res angusta domiy the little 
happenings of every-day life, would interest the absent 
friend, make of these letters a journal intime of Ma- 
dame Roland's early wedded years. Bosc had suc- 
ceeded to Sophie. 

For poor Sophie had been gently dislodged from 
Manon's heart. Roland was a monopolist in his 
wife's affections. Sophie did not decamp without 
many struggles. The end of the long correspondence 
is rather melancholy reading. Manon's poor excuses 
for her silences, her references to her absorbing new 
duties and occupations, the exclusive nature of marital 
affection — e tutte quante ; reasons which were no rea- 
sons, and which the exile met with arguments and 
reproaches. 

After the banishment of the unfortunate female 
friend, Madame Roland's affections became virilized. 
Her correspondence was henceforward with men, with 
Bosc, Bancal des Issarts, Champagneux, Brissot, and 
her colleagues and comrades in political Hfe. For 
several years Roland's duties took him much from 
home, and his wife's daily letters to him and her con- 
stant though often interrupted work on the Diction- 



2IO MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

naire filled many hours daily. But there was always 
a spare half-hour for a few lines to Bosc, and he kept 
the Rolands in touch with the affairs of the capital. 

Another less faithful friend who entered Madame 
Roland's life soon after her marriage was Doctor 
Francois Lanthenas. His father, a wealthy wax mer- 
chant, had obliged him, against his will, to enter busi- 
ness in Lyons. He had already travelled as an agent 
for silks and laces in Holland and Germany when he 
met Roland in Florence. Though Lanthenas was 
twenty years younger than the strict, elderly inspector, 
they became friends there, and looked forward to 
meeting again. Lanthenas returned from Italy, "ill, 
laden with books, engravings," an intense dislike for 
a shopkeeper's life, and a strong desire to study natural 
sciences. Perhaps his talks with Roland had con- 
firmed these inclinations. Finally, after having dem- 
onstrated his incapacity for business, in 1780 Lan- 
thenas obtained his father's permission to study 
medicine. He went to Paris and lodged in the Hotel 
de Lyon, where the Rolands had been living for several 
months. Before long he was on a fraternal footing 
with them. Madame called him *7(? -petit frere" and 
he addresses her as "/<2 sorella." When the classical 
Roland takes up the pen the little brother is "le fidele 
Achate y^ though sometimes more simply *'/<? com- 
pagnoUy^ or "/i? camarade.'' 

Lanthenas, though timid and irresolute in practical 
matters, was audacious in theory, and given to men- 
tal speculation. Later one of the laws that trans- 
formed France, the abolition of the rights of primogeni- 
ture, was the result of his pamphlets and political 



DOMI MANSIT—EUDORA 211 

influence. The Revolutionist was still in the bud in 
1780, but novelties attracted him. He considered 
seriously buying Mesmer's "Secret," as it was called, 
and becoming a thaumaturgist instead of a physician. 
But his interest in the newly discovered curative prop- 
erties of electricity, and the immense vogue of ''le 
baquet de Mesmer/' did not prevent his attendance at 
the lectures on electricity, or those of the medical 
school. Through Bosc, whose cheerful activity stimu- 
lated his own rather intermittent diligence, Lanthenas 
entered a circle of students and savants. Here he met 
Parraud, the translator and disciple of Swedenborg, 
and became a follower of the Swedish mystic. From 
1780 until 1792 his close friendship with the Rolands, 
and his rather touching dependence on them for men- 
tal sympathy and encouragement, kept them con- 
stantly together. Lanthenas's own family were un- 
congenial, his father was arbitrary, his elder brother 
tyrannical; both were thoroughly commercial in their 
ideas, and had a rich shopkeeper's contempt for the 
less lucrative professions. Roland's ideals and coun- 
sels, Madame Roland's vitality and enthusiasm, were 
a support and a spur to the rather melancholy stu- 
dent. Bosc and Lanthenas were equally devoted to 
the Rolands; Bosc disinterested and generous, because 
they needed him, Lanthenas introspective and hesi- 
tating, because he needed them. Bosc, like man}'- 
spirited young men, overflowing with an excess of 
vitality, was a favorite in some more frivolous circles, 
while Lanthenas was inclined to be a recluse. With 
her new friends Madame Roland spent most of her 
restricted leisure. Her father had passed out of her 



212 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

care, Sophie had faded into the background, the whole 
plan of her life had changed. This apparent shrivel- 
ling of interests and narrowing of affections is ex- 
plained in one word — work. Madame Roland's energy 
was running a new course. 

In September she visited her husband's family in 
Lyons, an event for sedentary Manon, who had flown 
no farther from her nest than Etampes. Warmly wel- 
comed by her "new mother," who saw much company, 
and still loved the theatre and the opera, admired by 
Roland's brothers, Madame Roland saw everything in 
a purple light of enthusiasm; even dull little Ville- 
franche was attractive, and at "Le Clos," in which 
later she was to spend her happiest years, "we aban- 
doned ourselves like school-children to the delights of 
country life, seasoned with all that the union and 
intimacy of the sweetest ties can add to it." The 
redoubtable mother-in-law, the venerable Bessye, who 
had found the marriage of a Roland with an engraver's 
daughter decidedly deplace at first, was viewed with 
partial eyes. Even Lyonnese society, which later 
Manon found to be so materialized and prejudiced, so 
crude and limited, in the first fine glow of feeling 
appeared only gay and hospitable. 

After a two months' honeymoon with her new rela- 
tives, Manon returned to Paris and to new labors. 
On the last day of December Roland signed a con- 
tract with the publisher Panckoucke for the Diction- 
naire des manufactures, arts et metiers. The author's 
rights were three francs a page (twenty-four livres par 
feuille); the work was published in parts; it was to 
have been in two volumes, which appeared duly in 



DOMI MANSIT—EUDORA 213 

1784-85, but the matter overflowed the mould, and in 
August, 1785, a contract was made for a third volume, 
treating skins and leathers, oils, soaps, and dyeing. 
The author's rights were tripled, a proof of the popu- 
larity of the preceding volumes, but the time and the 
minute research devoted to the articles must have 
made the undertaking a labor of love. It was not 
finished until 1792. 

Full of digressions, overburdened with notes and 
corrections, this work covers a vast field, and is a 
monument to the disinterestedness and public spirit of 
Roland. To spread the knowledge of the technical 
processes of manufacture for the profit of all was his 
object. To attain it he spared nothing, and he in- 
curred the hostility, even the active enmity, of the 
privileged manufacturers and their patrons. A timid 
man would have shrunk from such an undertaking, 
and only an enthusiast, sustained by a generous ideal, 
and voracious for work, would have carried it on to 
the end. 

With all its imperfections, its lack of style, and its 
compHcated method, the Dictionnaire was not un- 
worthy of its forerunner, the Enyclopedie, which 
Panckoucke, who was the first of the great modern 
pubhshers, of the Hachettes and the Firmin-Didots, 
had previously published in a revised form. Roland's 
work was intended to supplement it and add to it the 
discoveries and inventions of the last few decades. 
Balked in the practical application of his progressive 
ideas, Roland found an opportunity to exploit 
them theoretically, in the Dictionnaire, and in one 
sense it is a biography, for in it his theories, his 



214 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

struggles, his few triumphs, and his many defeats are 
recorded. 

The final business arrangements made, the Rolands 
left Paris for Amiens, and madame — after a journey to 
Dieppe, where Roland's Lettres d'ltalie were in press, 
and to Rouen, where she visited Roland's relatives and 
his old friends, the Demoiselles Malortie, the sisters of 
Cleobuline — settled down in a rather gloomy house 
adjoining the cemetery-cloister of Saint Denis, which 
she was to transform into the temple of Philemon and 
Baucis. This transformation, impeded rather than 
aided by two very inefficient servants, proceeded far 
more slowly than the one in the fable, but the big, 
rambling dwelHng possessed one feature with which 
no house can be really dreary, a garden, in which 
madame worked joyfully, with the hope of flowers to 
come. When the books were unpacked and Roland's 
Italian engravings hung, and his collection of trav- 
eller's curiosities nicely placed, the stately old house, 
far too large for the little family, was warmed into 
homeliness. To enliven it still further, a clavecin was 
added — only a hired one, for it was not until much 
later that a forte piano was purchased "with my sav- 
ings,'" wrote Madame Roland in her will. How well 
she played no one has mentioned, and it is hardly 
probable that one who spent so much time in other 
ways could have been a good performer, but there 
were plenty of pretty little twirligig tunes and many 
grand and simple melodies that an indifferent musi- 
cian could play well enough to enjoy. In any case, 
madame loved music, though her bourgeoise mother 
had, fearing that she might become a professional, 



DOM I MANSIT—EUDORA 215 

never allowed her to devote herself to it exclusively. 
Then, of course, there were the Dictionnaire articles 
to be polished and corrected, translations to be made, 
and a large correspondence sustained relative to tech- 
nical details and processes. The Dictionnaire was a 
real Danaid jar, and for twelve years it was patiently 
filled. 

There were social duties, too, which, even when 
reduced to the minimum, ate up the working hours. 
"The women here are afraid of you," Roland wrote 
his wife from Amiens, and Sophie sent the same reas- 
suring news to the rather shy young matron. Ro- 
land's friends seem to have been quickly propitiated. 
The attainments of a pretty woman, who blushes and 
hesitates in speech, are easily forgiven, and Madame 
Roland was welcomed by a coterie of cultivated people, 
old friends of her husband's. The De Brays, the De 
Chuignes, M. and Madame d'Eu, and M. de Vin, the 
cicisheoy en tout hien^ en toute honneur of Madame 
d'Eu, belonged to the grande bourgeoisie of Amiens. 
M. d'Eu was a collector of books and a student of 
science. M. de Vin was devoted to letters, and had 
founded the local academy, the Museum of Amiens; 
they lived close at hand and the Rolands saw them 
daily. The newcomer lacked neither sympathetic so- 
ciety nor visits. Madame was, however, very much 
occupied with preparations for another visit, which 
she expected in October (1781), and which proved a 
sad disappointment. She tried to soften the blow in 
a letter to Dom Roland, the head of the family: 

"Well, well, my dear brother, it is only a girl, and 
I make you my very humble excuses. . . . Also, I 



2i6 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

promise you that this Httle niece will love you so much 
that you will pardon her for putting her nose into a 
world where she has no business to come. 

" With this assurance, and with a promise to do bet- 
ter in future, I hope that you will accord me full for- 
giveness, and I hasten to ask it of you, as I believe 
you to be really and truly sorry. I know that you 
consider this a bitter dose. I agree that your position 
is a hard one. I have made a full confession, so now 
do not let us speak more of it, only of the side issues." 

The young mother felt that she had poorly requited 
the kindness of her new relatives. Only a girl when 
a boy was expected, a son for whom Roland was al- 
ready seeking a restoration of the ancient title, that 
he might be born noble; to whom the head of the 
house, the chanoine Dominique, was ready to cede the 
domain and the clos, so that the hoped-for heir might 
be in truth, as well as in name, a Roland de la Pla- 
tiere. These celibate brothers with the pride of the 
old gentry and the nepotism of priests had counted 
so much on a boy, to keep the honorable old house 
alive and the family acres together. Ideas had 
changed in an awakening France, but feeling was still 
mediaeval, and the eldest son occupied a position of 
authority and dignity in the home circle second only 
to that of the father. 

Was the disappointment of the brothers shared by 
Madame Roland .? Was she, like many women of 
strong will and virile mind, desirous to be the mother 
of men only, of sons who with larger opportunity and 
firmer purpose should translate her wishes into acts, 
her dreams into realities } The ladies of the Renais- 



DOMI MANSIT—EUDORA 2I7 

sance, who, despite their humanities, and their pic- 
tures and furniture, were very primitive persons (like 
their fathers and husbands), showed their disappoint- 
ment on similar occasions with animal directness. 
Madame Roland, frankest of women, never breathed a 
regret that her "little chicken," her "petite,' was not 
a boy, except in the playful letter to her brother-in- 
law. Indeed, the anxious, unquiet mama of Marie- 
Therese Eudora Roland was too constantly preoccu- 
pied in keeping her child alive to find a moment for 
any other considerations. Eudora had not inherited 
her mother's fine constitution, but even in her ten- 
derest infancy manifested certain other less desirable 
inherited characteristics. She was as obstinate as her 
father, as headstrong as the little Manon had been. 
Eudora refused to grow, she declined to digest. She 
cried all night, and slept during the day, only in order 
to prevent others from enjoying repose at the proper 
time. She bullied her mother and terrorized her 
nurse; she was so incredibly greedy that Manon de- 
cided the story of Eve was not so stupid after all, and 
that gormandizing must have been the original sin. 
The baby's stomach was her deity, and while her 
mother had early in life chosen the heroes of Plutarch 
for her models of conduct, Eudora had apparently 
selected the Emperor Vitellius for her exemplar. 

But this gluttonous, despotic mite of ailing flesh 
was the centre of Manon's universe. No madonna, 
more radiantly illumined by the ineffable tenderness 
within than by the golden light of her official aureole, 
ever bent over her divine charge in more absolute self- 
surrender. All her activities circled about this sick 



2i8 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

child, and the stoic, who had elected reason for her 
guide, now abandoned herself quite unabashed to 
pure instinct. She was all mother; a passion of love 
and pity had submerged all other duties, all other 
claims. 

Like many robust girls, Manon became a feeble 
and delicate parent. For many months her strength 
did not return, and she who had easily walked from 
the Pont Neuf to Vincennes could not cross her own 
room without falling from weakness. Invalidism was 
intolerable to her, for it condemned her to inaction. 
She was shaken by the terrors of the mother who 
looks on helpless while her child pines; she was tor- 
tured by jealousy of Eudora's nurse, of the bonnes in 
whose strong arms the baby was quieter and more 
content than in her own trembling ones. She had 
insisted on nursing her child against the advice of her 
physician, and in spite of Roland's remonstrances. 
Eudora seconded her by refusing to thrive except at 
her mother's expense, and prudent counsels were nat- 
urally unheeded by Manon with the thin, querulous 
wail of a hungry baby in her ear. Very slowly, with 
infinite patience and utter oblivion of self, Madame 
Roland built up the child's strength and restored her 
own. Her task was a difficult one; there were few 
"Parent's Guides" and "Mother's Assistants" to help 
and advise. Her only vade mecum was Madame de 
Reboul's Avis aux Meres. Medicine was in its heroic 
age, and busied itself little with the ills of women and 
children. Half of the infants born were expected to 
die, and they fulfilled expectations. Only the fittest 
survived the rough nursing of the peasant foster- 



DOMI MANSIT—EUDORA 219 

mothers to whom they were invariably confided. 
Manon got little aid from her doctor. "Z,a medecine 
est un art -purement conjectural^'^ she concluded sadly, 
after cross-examining him. Each case was practically 
a new experience and fresh matter for experiment. 
This decision encouraged her to do some experimenta- 
tion for herself in diet and regime. Thanks to her 
initiative and her intelligence, the puny baby was 
truly born again to health and joy; Eudora was twice 
her mother's daughter. 

Of course in this long struggle with death minor 
interests were forgotten. The Dictionnaire languished, 
and though for an hour or two in the twenty-four 
Manon remembered that she was a wife, and always 
wrote Roland a long letter daily during his frequent 
absences from home, it was sometimes almost illegible 
because Eudora insisted on remaining in her mother's 
lap. For the same reason all reading save in the 
smallest volumes was renounced; indeed, Eudora filled 
the whole arc of her existence so completely that 
when M. de Vin came in jubilant to announce the 
surrender of Yorktown, Manon, the ardent republi- 
can and former sympathizer with the high-spirited 
Americans, commented coolly: "I cannot conceive 
what interest a private individual can take in the 
aflFairs of kings who are not fighting for us !" 

If the Citoyenne Roland had reread the letters of 
Madame de la Platiere she would have winced and 
perhaps blushed at this sentence. What blinders 
ruthless Dame Nature claps on her wisest daughters 
when she uses them for her own purposes ! Hypatia 
in the nursery, worried over an outbreak of measles, 



220 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

would probably have received the news of the burning 
of the Alexandrian library with indifference. If the 
recently published letters to Roland are a record of 
obscure though unfaltering devotion, they are also 
from their very nature a chronicle of the smallest of 
beer. Manon herself characterizes them: "Here are 
nothing but accounts of drugs and meals; would you 
believe that you could have read them without dis- 
gust ? How affection transforms and lends interest to 
the commonest subject!" 

Roland's sudden descent from the altar and his 
abasement to a mere acolyte of the high priestess to 
the new divinity was something of a shock to him. 
It was difficult to sink instantly into insignificant 
fatherhood. Manon broke his fall with soft words: 
"Adieu, menage-toi hien ; songe que ma fille ne me tient 
a la vie que 'par un petit fily et que tu m'y attaches de tous 
les coteSy et choie ma sante dans la tienne." Dishearten- 
ing lists of varied ills: smoky chimneys, indigestions, 
sick-room details, and the misdeeds of cooks and 
bonnes, who seem to have been unusually imperfect 
people, the prose of domestic life in fine, invariably 
ended with a tender message to hearten and comfort 
Roland as he splashed through the deep mud of 
dreary roads on his winter journeys. 

With time Eudora grew less voracious and exacting 
and Manon more normal. She even went to the 
theatre en loge grillee, the cosey stage-box where if lazy 
or ill one went e7i neglige, with foot-warmer and work- 
bag, and where Manon wept over Mahomet and 
L'Orphelin de Chine — works that leave modern eyes 
quite dry. She attended church on Sundays, "to 



DO MI MANSIT—EUDORA 221 

freeze her feet for the edification of her neighbor." 
She paid a visit of congratulation to Madame d'Eu, 
and returned indignant to confide her ire to Roland. 
"Yesterday Madame d'Eu gave birth to a daughter; 
her husband is ashamed of it, and she is in a bad 
temper. I have never seen anything so grotesque. I 
went out this morning to see them. Bo7i Dieu ! How 
strange it seems to me to find a newly made mother 
without her child. The poor baby sucked its fingers, 
and drank cow's milk in a room far away from its 
mother, while waiting for the mercenary being who is 
to nurse it. The father was in a great hurry to have 
the baptism over so as to send the little creature away 
to the village [of the foster-mother]. Now, my dear, 
it is not my fault, but I respect them both a little less 
since I have witnessed their indifference." 

Sundays were Manon's holidays, spent in botanizing 
during the fine weather in the fields and ditches around 
Amiens, for with the return of health she resumed 
work on the Dictionnaire; it was difficult and dry, but 
as usual she idealized her drudgery, considering it as 
Roland's Apologia, and a means of bringing to the 
people useful and profitable knowledge that monopo- 
Hsts' greed had withheld. And Manon also looked 
forward to a pleasant harvest-time when at last she 
should have done with Jrts and might give herself 
unreservedly to Letters; a pleasant Indian summer, «w 
ete de la Saint Martin, when Roland retired from his 
inspectorship on a well-earned pension, and the benefi- 
cent Dictionnaire finished, he and she should really 
act Philemon and Baucis. A vine-hung cottage like 
those Gessner described to ravished town-dwellers, a 



222 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

little farm, a few friends, long, blissful days with 
poets and philosophers, with flowers and music — this 
was the mirage on which Manon fixed longing eyes 
while she toiled steadily through a desert of technical 
aridities. 



CHAPTER XI 
FROM AMIENS TO LYONS 

With the design of realizing this ideal, the Rolands 
decided in the spring of 1784 to ask for letters of 
nobility and a retiring pension. The former demand 
was not as much out of character as appears at the 
first blush. When an heir was expected Dominique 
Roland, the head of the clan, had gathered the finest 
fruits of the family tree, and collected documentary 
evidence to prove the former nobility of his house 
during its prosperity. After reverses of fortune the 
Rolands ceased to bear arms that they were unable to 
gild; they now asked, therefore, merely for the resto- 
ration and the public acknowledgment of what they 
had once possessed. A list of their titles and honors 
signed and sealed by the nobility of Beaujolais and 
the senechaussee and municipality of Villefranche re- 
mains among the Roland family papers in the Biblio- 
theque Nationale in madame's handwriting. 

Letters of nobility conferred practical rights and 
privileges, exemptions from taxes and many vexatious 
imposts, and insured a fixed social position. Inventors 
and manufacturers had recently been ennobled; for 
instance, Roland's adversary, Holker, and the father 
of the aeronaut Montgolfier. Roland leaned, also, on 
his personal merits, thirty years of service, and his 
writing and researches. Against him, however, were 

223 



224 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

his projected reforms, which disturbed monopolists 
and indolent holders of sinecures, his activity that set 
an uncomfortably high standard of comparison, his 
neglect of current courtesies, and his uncompromising 
frankness of speech, which had alarmed and offended 
the Intendants of Commerce. They presented an 
almost unbroken front of opposition to the advance- 
ment of a restless, uncivil agitator, as they considered 
Roland. To secure his letters of nobility a recommen- 
dation to the King from the Royal Council of Com- 
merce was required. Trudaine, Roland's friend and 
protector, was dead, and Calonne, the new Controleur- 
general des finances (since April 3, 1783), was at the 
head of the Council; the good-will of the directors 
was, therefore, necessary to Roland's success, as the 
newly appointed Controleur would naturally be influ- 
enced by their opinions; and these directors, the In- 
tendants of Commerce, were inimical to Roland. He 
had already experienced one check from them; the 
usual form of application for the title had already been 
followed and had failed, for Roland's papers had been 
submitted to the adversary of his reforms, and, as 
might have been expected, had not been heard from. 
In order to avoid the Intendants, the Rolands de- 
cided to reverse the usual procedure, and apply directly 
to Calonne. If a letter from him approving Roland's 
request could be obtained before the Intendants were 
consulted, their opposition would come too late, and 
the affair would be put through by a coup de main. 
It was decided in the family council that Manon would 
be a more effective solicitor than Roland, so on 
March 18 she left Eudora in his care, and, accompa- 



i 




MADAME ROLAND 

From a portrait drawing in the possession of her family 



FROM AMIENS TO LYONS 225 

nied by the faithful successor of Mignonne, Marie 
Fleury, took the coach for Paris. She had engaged 
rooms at the Hotel de Lyon, where she found herself 
among friends. Roland's brother, the Benedictine 
prior, met her there, lent her furniture, and looked 
after her comfort, and Lanthenas, who was studying 
medicine, and lodged on the floor above her, was de- 
lighted to run her errands and squire her about Paris. 
Bosc was a daily visitor, and gave her what time he 
could spare from his sick father. Her own father was 
evidently estranged from her, for Bonnemaman Phlipon 
died shortly before Manon's arrival in Paris (March 10), 
and she learned of her grandmother's death only 
through Sister Agathe. The manufacturer Flesselles, 
Roland's generous friend, who was in Paris to obtain 
a "privilege" from Calonne to introduce Arkwright's 
spinning-jenny in France, gave her advice and all the 
help in his power. Mademoiselle de la Belouze, Roland's 
cousin, introduced Manon to some people at court, the 
D'Arbouvilles, who promised assistance, and Manon 
began her campaign in kind company. 

She commenced operations by putting her papers in 
order, unpacked her gowns, and engaged a hair-dresser. 
Mindful, also, of inevitable jading delays, and hours 
of enforced idleness, she hired a clavecin, and borrowed 
Clarissa Harlowe — not in the original, though she had 
studied English during the previous three years. She 
had also provided herself with some things more diffi- 
cult to acquire than even a language — a meekness 
greater than that of Moses and a patience out-Jobing 
the Edomite's. 

Her experience was recounted in daily letters to 



226 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

Roland. They yield material for a comedy of man- 
ners, and afford a glimpse of public life and political 
administration that would be more diverting if we 
were sure that the methods it describes were obsolete. 
Manon's object was a personal interview with M. de 
Calonne, le charmant roue, as she and everybody in the 
world called him when they used no harsher term, but 
M. de Calonne was as inaccessible as the Grand Lama. 
The swift, simple course planned at home, which 
seemed feasible enough when they talked it over in Ro- 
land's study, proved almost impracticable; indeed, no 
honest and straightforward person, unaccustomed to 
court life, could realize beforehand the labyrinth of in- 
trigue that surrounded the minister. He was the centre 
of a veritable maze of plots and schemes. Manon's task 
was to find a clew to guide her to him; instead, she 
soon discovered that she herself was enmeshed in a 
tangle of red tape. At the outset she was assured that 
to defy precedent was impossible; she must proceed in 
the old way and propitiate the Intendants. With the 
zeal of a recruit she resolved to try both methods and 
to knock at all doors, to renounce the title, if neces- 
sary, and solicit only the retiring pension. She ** armed 
herself to the teeth with patience," and with her rare 
faculty of living in the present rather enjoyed playing 
the game and making the best of her hand, even if her 
cards were poor and fortune refractory. '* Me voild 
done tout-de-bon solliciteuse et intrigante ; c'est un bien sot 
metier ! Mais enfin je le fais, et point a demiy car 
autrement il serait fort inutile de s^en meler.^' 

Manon thrust her pride into her pocket, and wait- 
ed patiently in antechambers, danced attendance at 



FROM AMIENS TO LYONS 227 

early levees, ruined herself in carnage hire galloping 
to and from Versailles, and daily endured an elaborate 
hair-dressing — not the least of her trials. There was 
truly no royal road to preferment; instead, there were 
dingy back-stairs to climb, the underworld of lackeys 
and parasites to pass, constant demand for propitiatory 
offerings, and endless petty, mean trials for pride and 
patience. Manon determined at least to deserve suc- 
cess, swallowed slices of humble-pie without a grimace, 
and ignored the impertinences of porters and flunkies 
with cheerful serenity. The remembrance of Roland's 
thirty years of unflagging zeal in his country's service, 
his honest right to compensation for his life's work, 
sustained her in her daily efforts. Great people were 
hedged about with lesser people of awful dignity of 
mien, whose grandeur increased in direct ratio as their 
social importance diminished. It was mainly with 
this outer circumference of rank that Manon's busi- 
ness lay. She waited on the steward of this, the sec- 
retary of that, great personage; she made her courtesy 
to superannuated ladies-in-waiting and royal femmes 
de chambre with the same cheerful dignity that she 
maintained in face of obstacles and discouragement. 

In truth, she was better off than her predecessors 
had been during the previous reign. Under Louis the 
Beloved favor-seekers sought the good graces of a 
lap-dog as the surest way to advancement. This dis- 
penser of places and honors was the property of JuHe, 
the petted maid of Madame de Grammont, the sister 
of the Due de Choiseul, chief wire-puller of the puppet 
King of France. Julie held her court, or, rather, 
opened an ofl&ce for the distribution of positions and 



228 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

pensions in the entresol of the hotel, where the dog 
was enthroned to receive homage. Verses were made 
to it, as well as more substantial offerings, for large 
issues hung on the wagging of its tail, and ambitious 
projects were quashed by a growl. The pampered pet 
and his mistress gave an emperor to France. How a 
shifty Italian pleased the dog and bribed Julie, who 
managed her mistress, who persuaded Choiseul, who 
impelled the King; how Genoa was betrayed, Corsica 
crushed, and finally ceded to France in time to make 
Napoleone Buonaparte a French citizen (August 15, 
1769) is matter of history. 

Manon at least had skipped one rung of the ladder, 
and begun with the human favorite. Kind M. de 
Flesselles knew Madame Elizabeth's valet de chamhrey 
who perhaps could be persuaded to say a word for 
Manon to M. de Vaudreuil, who was all-powerful with 
M. de Calonne. The desired interview might be ob- 
tained if M. de Vaudreuil, who was the lover of Ma- 
dame de Polignac, who was the favorite of the Queen, 
who was the patroness of M. de Calonne, could be 
induced by Madame EHzabeth's valet de chambre, insti- 
gated by M. de Flesselles, to recommend Roland. 

It was a strange house-that-Jack-built, this govern- 
ment by favor. The rule of Marie Antoinette, which 
had succeeded to that of Madame du Barry, differed 
in no way from her predecessor's. It was character- 
ized by the same absence of principles, the same igno- 
rance of public affairs, the same lack of any sense of 
duty. The new Reine Cotillon was as frivolous and 
capricious as the older sovereign, and more extrava- 
gant and arbitrary. In 1784, when Manon began her 



FROM AMIENS TO LYONS 229 

quest, M. de Vaudreuil was King of France, for if 
Marie Antoinette ruled Louis XVI, Madame de Po- 
lignac tyrannized over Marie Antoinette, and M. de 
Vaudreuil governed Madame de Polignac. He lorded 
it over his slave's slave, also, was intolerably insolent 
to the Queen, and once, when she opposed his will, 
shattered her pet billiard cue in a fit of rage. Maria 
Theresa's daughter bowed her regal neck to his yoke, 
for Madame de Polignac had tamed her spirit. In- 
stances of her abasement abound; one may suffice 
here: 

The minister of war, Montbarrey, had refused to 
lend money to Vaudreuil, who promptly demanded the 
minister's dismissal. The Queen hesitated; Montbar- 
rey was the choice of Coigny, another of her favorites, 
whom she feared to offend. She ventured to resist, 
but Madame de Polignac had only to threaten to retire 
from court to bring the Queen literally to her knees, in 
a passion of tears and entreaties, begging pardon for 
her momentary rebellion. To prove her repentance, 
Marie Antoinette obeyed her despot more blindly than 
before, and appointed Vaudreuil's creature Segur to 
the ministry. She knew nothing of Segur, not even 
his name. "Be happy, my dear, Puy segur is named," 
she announced triumphantly to her ruler (Besen- 
val). The Queen's little mistake corrected, through 
Segur the Polignac faction controlled the army, and 
through their protege, Calonne, they disposed of the 
national finances. '*// fallait un calculateur^ on a 
nomme un danseur^^ laughed Figaro-Beaumarchais 
when this appointment was made. Folk less cheerful 
called the new minister a panzer perce, and trembled to 



230 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

see the public money in the hands of this prodigal. 
Calonne more than reahzed the expectations of the 
camarilla who surrounded the Queen, and the fears of 
the intelHgent. He began by announcing that, unHke 
stingy Necker, he should constantly consider private 
fortunes. He had previously dissipated his own, and 
confessed to Machault: "The finances of France are 
in a deplorable condition. You may be sure that I 
should never have taken charge of them but for the 
bad state of my own." He had just begun his aston- 
ishing career in 1784, but had already borrowed a hun- 
dred millions, paid the princes' debts, and gorged with 
gold the faction to which he owed his power. *'Is 
that all ? " he asked a lady who brought him a draft 
for an enormous sum. In one year Calonne paid out 
in cash 136,000,000 livres, 21,000,000 on orders to the 
bearer. 

Never had queen so obliging a paymaster. She 
kept him busy, for her many friendships flourished only 
under a golden shower. Her own privy purse had 
grown from 200,000 to 400,000 livresy but she was 
always penniless, for besides her enormous gaming 
debts and her passion for dress and diamonds, there 
were many favored ones besides Madame de Polignac. 
There were also Madame de Polignac's lover, child, 
husband, brothers, sister, sister's husband and lovers 
to be enriched. The jealousies of outgrown favorites 
were soothed only by an increase of their pensions; for 
instance, it cost a France that could not pay its sol- 
diers, 150,000 livres to salve Madame de Lamballe's 
wounded feelings when supplanted by Madame de 
Polignac, though this poor invalid, a kind of doll-in- 



FROM AMIENS TO LYONS 231 

waiting, was already receiving an annual income of 
150,000 livres from the Treasury, because she had once 
pleased the Queen. But the river of gold flowing so 
bounteously into emblazoned coffers dwindled to a 
slender stream before it reached the workers of the 
Third Estate. Strict economy was practised only in 
the pay-rolls of those who served the nation. 

It was not long before Manon's hopes of a retiring 
pension grew misty, and her new knowledge of the 
difficulties of the situation convinced her of the im- 
probability of honest work finding an honorable rec- 
ompense unassisted by antechamber influence. In an 
hour of discouragement she wrote to Roland. The 
result alarmed her. The proud, stoical man wept for 
the fatigue and humiliation she had borne for him, and 
was so ready to renounce the whole project that she 
was obliged to reassure him in order to continue her 
quest. 

April 9, 1784. 

"Why, my friend, it is you who are grieving and 
shedding tears! You who have a right to all the 
sweets of an industrious and honorable hfe, consecrated 
to the public good ! You whom no one can deprive of 
your own approval, to which is joined that of the 
majority of the public, and a crowd of distinguished 
people ! You who esteem so highly the joys of domes- 
tic life, and whom nobody in the world can prevent 
enjoying it ! Can a few unjust men do away with so 
many causes of happiness } Come to my heart with 
our Eudora; let us forget despicable people. Our love, 
our mutual trust, and peace, are they not enough for 
our happiness, with a corner of the earth to which 



232 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

we can retire ? Come, if you can conquer the indigna- 
tion and bitterness caused by baseness and injustice; 
if you can free yourself from labors that distress me by 
their effect on you. I ask no more to be happy . . . 
the thought of your sadness is unbearable to me. 
Take better care of our common happiness that you 
hold in your hands. Take courage, let us do every- 
thing that is possible, and give up the rest. . . . 
Finally, my dear, if we are not made to be happy in 
spite of the devil, never human beings were made to 
be so. Take good care of your health; as for me, I 
laugh at everything else. I kiss you on both eyes. I 
beseech you to be more tranquil; play with our baby 
while you think of her mother, and then see if you still 
can be sad. At least it would not be wise to be so. 
Write to me with another ink, or I shall start for 
home at once, and no longer waste my life thus away 
from you; it is this only that really grieves me. But 
write me from your heart. I mean to say that I do 
not wish a change only in outward signs, but in your 
feelings. I embrace you without being able to tear 
myself from your arms, to which I burn to fly. Adieu." 

Meanwhile, all the old practitioners in the business 
of favor-seeking, from Madame Adelaide's femme de 
chamhre to the ahbe galant, who knew the court better 
than the church, convinced Manon that her only 
chance of success lay in abandoning her short cut to 
honors and returning to the beaten track. The In- 
tendants' recommendation must be obtained before 
any one, even the most unimportant official, would 
consider her claims. Manon, stifling her misgivings. 



FROM AMIENS TO LYONS 233 

changed her tactics, and abandoning the hope of an 
interview with Calonne as too romantic for reahzation, 
at once began the siege of the Intend ants. Roland's 
most violent opponent was Tolozan; Blondel and 
Montaran took their cue from him, and it was with 
some trepidation that Madame Roland made him her 
first visit. She sent an account of it to her husband 
directly afterwards. 

Monday Evening, April 19th, 1784. 

"I received last evening notice of a rendez-vous to- 
day between ten and eleven o'clock. I have seen the 
bear. I have cut his claws a little but he growled a 
good deal. He has promised to help me. I could not 
promise myself more. Now that I have satisfied your 
impatience in telling you the result, I am going to 
amuse you by the details. 

"When I went into Tolozan's study he was in his 
night-cap; rising with a nod and a sullen air, without 
looking at me, he showed me the armchair that was 
waiting for me. I began by thanking him for the 
time he gave me in the midst of his occupations, etc. 
A ' What's it about ? ' said impatiently warned me to 
cut my courtesies short. I was determined not to be 
confused. I answered very quietly that I came to 
explain your situation and your wishes; that I came 
to him because his sagacity, as well as his equity in 
business, were equally well known. From him I ex- 
pected the justness of views and the decision that 
should be authoritative; that for thirty years you had 
sufficiently demonstrated your zeal, your talents, etc. 
But hardly had I begun to blow your trumpet when 



234 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

he rose and with singular fire [saidj: 'Take care not 
to represent him to us as a superior man ! That is his 
pretension, but we are far from considering him one!' 
From there on I had to stand an outburst, but an out- 
burst of which it is not possible to give you an idea." 

Roland was accused of pedantry, unbearable pride, 
greed of glory, pretensions of all kinds; he was a per- 
petual contradictor, a bad writer, a bad politician, 
aspiring to rule everything, incapable of subordination, 
etc., etc. Manon replied that these reproaches simply 
amounted to a demonstration that the Intend ants had 
been piqued by the energy of an enlightened man 
whose opinions were all of them the result of toil and 
experience, who believed it his duty to tell the truth 
at any cost, and who expressed himself forcibly; but 
that, on one side, they, the Rolands, could offer much 
actual work and useful suggestions, and, on the other 
side, they could not present a single fact in proof of 
so many vague accusations. Tolozan answered that, as 
to Roland's writings, many inspectors have furnished 
memoirs which were considered quite as important. 

"We fought long and hard; it is impossible to write 
all these pettinesses. To sum up: you are a good in- 
spector, nothing more; an honorable man with talent, 
but you must be in the first place." M. de Tolozan 
feared, also, that if Roland was accorded a title all 
the other inspectors would solicit one. 

"But," replied Madame Roland, "all have not the 
same rights to it; a noble family and published works." 
She tried to make Tolozan distinguish between the 
actual inspectorship and the writings and reforms 



FROM AMIENS TO LYONS 235 

which Roland had added to its duties. "But then if 
you separate these things it will be as a literary man 
[that Roland will be ennobled]." "Have letters of 
nobility ever been given to a man of letters ? " asked 
Tolozan scornfully. "Why not.^" repHed Manon in- 
trepidly; "they are given to a paper-seller who made a 
balloon.'* "My vilain laughed like a grimacing monkey. 
In the end he personally greatly desired that inspectors 
generally might aspire to this distinction, and that 
you especially might attain it. Finally, he advised 
me to see these gentlemen [the other Intendants]. He 
added that I [Manon] serve you very well; it is a plea- 
sure to hear me. He praised my enthusiasm that 
honors me. 'No, monsieur, it honors my husband. If 
it is true that there is no hero for his valet de chamhrey 
it is rather strange that this man whom you blame 
for a disposition that makes you forget his talents, 
his work, and his zeal should be to his wife in every 
respect the most distinguished and venerable of beings.' 
The bear answered me rather wittily, but I will tell 
you all that another day. ... I believe that I have 
seen the crossest of them; it is not possible that the 
others can say anything worse; he meantime warned 
me that M. B[londel] would say as much to me, and 
M. M[ontaran] a little more." 

Blondel and Montaran proved gentler and far more 
courteous, but Manon preferred the honest roughness 
of M. de Tolozan to their quiet opposition. "Would 
you believe that he who shouted at me inspires me 
with more confidence than the others who were civil 
to me, and who did not seem frank .? Under his 
brusqueness there is the openness of which he is proud. 



236 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

He may act in our favor because he is as deeply per- 
suaded of the good that he admits as of the evil that 
he reproaches you with. I remember that M. Mon- 
taran, modifying what I recalled to him of his letter, 
said it meant only that you were made for the first 
place, and were not suited to your own. To M. Blon- 
del, who made so many observations to me on the 
necessity of yielding to circumstances, of respecting 
conventions in order not to offend any one, etc., I 
answered that I knew very well that in society, as on 
the stage, the savoir vivre of Philinte was considered 
more agreeable than the virtue of Alceste [Le Misan- 
thrope of Moliere], but that no one had ever thought 
that the latter deserved to be punished for his austerity, 
and you were for yours. " (April 24.) 

Manon, in spite of her admiration for Alceste- 
Roland's inflexibility, adroitly profited by the criti- 
cisms of the Intendants to preach mildness and cour- 
tesy to him, and to point out his shortcomings. 
"Finally, all that I can tell you is that if you are careful 
about your correspondence, if you are more gentle, or 
if you will let me do it for only six months, at the end 
of that time a general inspectorship will be due, and 
I wish to have it. But, above everything, as I said 
to you before leaving, do not get angry in your letters, 
or else let me see them before you send them. You 
must not offend these people. Your pride is known 
well enough, now show them your good nature. . . . 
Mon hon amiy these people are not so bad. They were 
ruffled, and the dryness of your style [of writing] has 
done all the harm, making them believe that you had 
a terrible disposition and intolerable pretensions. I 



FROM AMIENS TO LYONS 237 

assure you that they [the Intendants] can be man- 
aged." 

They could be by one who wore her thirty years as 
lightly as though they were twenty odd, and whose 
voice was mellow and tunable enough to plead a far 
worse cause with some measure of success. Reason- 
able, patient, always ready with a reply or an expla- 
nation, candid almost to indiscretion, her "sweetness 
and gentle breeding" advanced Roland's suit more 
effectually than his essay on "Sheep" or his improve- 
ments in the manufacture of cotton velvet. " Elle est 
etonnante" was the general verdict; still, even Manon's 
eyes and arguments could not turn the tide of favor 
or arrest the movement of the political machine. A 
few visits to the Intendants, several answers to her 
searching questions, assured her that more money and 
more influence than she could command were essential 
to success. 

By mid-May, disappointed but not discouraged, she 
had decided to give up the title and go back to Amiens, 
returning later to Paris to ask for a retiring pension 
at a more favorable moment. She had already begun 
a round of farewell visits, when M. Montaran's secre- 
tary gave her some news that revived her hopes. Her 
first battle was lost, but there was time to win another. 

A protege of the Due de Liancourt, Lazowsky, had 
succeeded in pleasing Calonne, who had just made a 
place for him. Lazowsky had asked for a general 
inspectorship. It is perhaps superfluous to add that 
he possessed no training and no capacity for so im- 
portant a position; these considerations would not 
have stood in his way, but, unfortunately, there was 



238 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

no place of the kind vacant. Therefore, an ambulant 
inspectorship was invented for him, with an annual 
salary of eight thousand livres; to earn it he was to 
travel eight months of the year in the provinces and 
spend four in Paris. In order to justify the appoint- 
ment of an unknown and inexperienced man to such 
a responsible office, three other similar inspectors were 
named, who would become general inspectors when 
vacancies occurred, an arrangement which lent the 
appointment a businesslike air and screened the favor- 
ite behind the real workers. This general change in 
office left the post at Lyons vacant, and Manon in- 
stantly decided to ask for it. The city was more im- 
portant than Amiens, the salary larger, the duties less 
arduous, and Roland's home was near, where summers 
and vacations could be passed. She had no time to 
consult her husband; she must act at once, or the place 
would be filled. She found the inspectors willing after 
they had denied so much to grant a little, and she 
moved with so much despatch that by May 22 she 
wrote to Roland: "Well, my friend, the business is 
done; we shall go to Lyons." There remained only a 
few details to settle, and a few good-bys to say, among 
them a last visit to M. de Tolozan. The "bear" was 
then quite tamed; he gave Manon no end of good 
advice about "tempering" Roland's asperities, and 
promised her his help "in all her ambitions," adding in 
a tone of real feehng: "This is not a compliment to a 
woman that I am making you, but a tribute that I 
love to pay to your sweetness and honesty." This 
effusion from one usually so gruff brought the quick 
tears to Manon's eyes; and the bear's were not dry 



FROM AMIENS TO LYONS 239 

when they parted after many promises of future ser- 
vice on his part. 

Manon's mission was over, and she ended it appro- 
priately by a pilgrimage to Rousseau's tomb at Erme- 
nonville. Her time in Paris had not all been filled 
with business. She had seen the Duke of Orleans gal- 
lery {chose delicieuse que je verrais et reverrais bien des 
fots); she had heard Salieri's Danaides, that she, like 
everybody else, ascribed to Gliick. Of The Marriage 
of Figaro, which she finally succeeded in seeing 
(May 14), after many attempts, she wrote, before 
they were successful: "It is a poor piece, full of im- 
proprieties, they tell me," and again: "As to Figaro, 
I must hurry; they want to make it fail by spreading 
a report that the Queen said she should not go to see 
it because the piece was indecent, and soon it will be 
the fashion for many women not to go. At least, that 
is what Mile, de la B[elouze] and certain people be- 
lieve. The first time it is given I shall try not to miss 
it." There is no record of her own impressions of the 
most brilliant comedy ever written, more's the pity. 

Like every provinciale in Paris, Manon bought her- 
self a new hat, and shopped for Eudora, but she spent 
more time with Panckoucke, Roland's editor, than 
with her hair-dresser, and bought more books than 
finery. Lavater's work, which she coveted, was too 
dear at six louis for her flattened purse. Mesmer and 
his tub interested her, for she hoped that the electrical 
treatment would benefit Roland; it was the cure-all 
of the moment, and there were clubs all over France 
to study it, though the faculty regarded Mesmer as it 
does the modern osteopath. 



240 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

The death of Bosc's father saddened her stay in 
Paris, and for many days interrupted her place-seek- 
ing. She squeezed a few piano lessons into her busy 
hours, and spent one evening at a concert of sacred 
music, where in a box adjoining hers she saw La 
Blancherie. She looked upon this idol of her youth 
with a convert's indifference to his late gods. La 
Blancherie did not appear to recognize her. Truly, a 
tame finish to a first fond adventure. 

The Rolands made a short visit to England before 
going to Lyons. On July i, accompanied by M. de 
Vin and Lanthenas, they left Amiens. Manon made 
short notes during her English trip, which lasted only 
three weeks. She was delighted with everything in 
what to her was the land of freedom, and observed 
everywhere the beneficent effects of the English con- 
stitution. Her remarks show a very practical ten- 
dency, which was due, no doubt, to her guide, Roland. 
The fat sheep, the huge turnips, the deep, mossy turf 
pleased her almost as much as the brilliant bloom and 
virginal air of English maidens, in whom she recog- 
nized the models for Clarissa and Pamela. 

She wrote of them to Bosc: "Truly, I should like to 
see you in England; you would be in love with all the 
women; I, a female, was almost. These do not resem- 
ble ours at all, and generally have that shape of the 
face prized by Lavater. I am not astonished that a 
man of feeling who knows English women has a voca- 
tion for Pennsylvania. JlleZy believe me, any one 
who does not esteem the English men, and feel a ten- 
der interest mingled with admiration for their women, 
is a coward or a thoughtless fellow, or an ignorant 



FROM AMIENS TO LYONS 241 

fool who speaks without knowing what he is talking 
about." 

The popularity of good plays, the theatres filled 
with audiences of poor people who were appreciative 
and more enthusiastic than the fine folk in the boxes, 
surprised and interested her. She tasted English hos- 
pitality: Roland's profession had brought him into rela- 
tion with manufacturers and men of affairs, who wel- 
comed a Frenchman of a type little known to most 
foreigners, le Fran^ais serieuxy whose acquirements 
were of that solid and practical kind so much appre- 
ciated in England. In fine, it was a rose-hued view of 
perfidious Albion that Madame Roland brought back 
to France. 

The last few days in Amiens were saddened by a 
misunderstanding with Sophie's husband, but this was 
the only shadow on a sunny outlook, for when the 
last cases were corded, the last trunk closed, the Roland 
family, bonne, baby, bundles, and all, set out for a 
round of farewell visits to relatives and friends (Au- 
gust 23). They travelled in their own cabriolet, and 
experienced the usual vicissitudes of wayfarers, the 
wettings and breakdowns that supplied our forefathers' 
journeys with picturesque incident. They stopped at 
Rouen, Dieppe, Paris, Longpont, and Dijon, on their 
devious way to Villefranche, where they stayed but 
a day, and then hurried on to the Clos to rest and 
enjoy the vintage festival (October 3). 



CHAPTER XII 
LE CLOS, VILLEFRANCHE, AND LYONS 

The Clos de la Platiere, where Manon lived an 
ideal country life for several happy years (1786-91), 
is still in the possession of her great-granddaughter, 
Mme. Marillier, though it has recently been offered for 
sale. The passing of a century and a quarter had 
brought few changes when I visited the Clos, some 
years ago, and the drawing made by the Rolands* 
friend Albert Gosse, in 1786, differs little from the 
modern photographs of the house and garden. 

The Clos, as the whole estate, vineyards, farm, and 
buildings is called, is situated in the commune of 
Theize, ten kilometres from Villefranche on the Saone. 
I drove one pleasant morning in early June on the same 
winding, climbing road that the Rolands' cabriolet 
followed more than a hundred years ago. This road, 
firm and hard as marble, led from the dull little town 
along the edge of a valley. Spring had clothed the 
meadows with a royal mantle of living green, powdered 
with purple blossoms of mint and regal fleur-de-lis, 
but the low, steep hills thriftily divided among many 
hands into numberless small fields wore a coat of 
shreds and patches. They were not so highly culti- 
vated in Madame Roland's time, and the forests had 
not fallen back before the all-conquering vine. 

242 



LE CLOS, VILLEFRANCHE, AND LYONS 243 

We soon ceased to skirt the valley, and began to 
climb the foot-hills of the Beaujolais range. As we 
rose, a broad, billowing expanse of country rolling 
upward towards distant heights was revealed, a coun- 
try sober in contour, rich in color. The sharp curves 
of the hillsides, vine-clad to their summits, lent variety 
to the landscape, but it was grave and glowing rather 
than picturesque or romantic. The warm, mellow 
tone of the whole region is due to the color of the stone 
universally used for building material, and of the soil 
that seems to be this same stone pulverized. 

The earth is a rich red, the stone when freshly quar- 
ried a brilliant ochre, toning with age to terra-cotta, 
russet, and finally, through half a dozen intermediate 
tints, to a delicate grayish purple, as though the Lyon- 
nais, proud of its antiquity, cherishing its classical 
heritage, still wrapped itself in the rags of its Roman 
mantle. More recent memories are not lacking. The 
countryside is closely populated, and the villages, 
built of large square stones, follow one another like 
the beads of a broken necklace. A great deal of liv- 
ing has been done, much history has been made in 
these uplands, and each hamlet shows a tower, a 
church, or a shrine. There are more towers, rising 
strong and dark, on distant heights, built in that 
Romanesque style that seems so naturally the sturdy 
successor of the Roman; indeed, the whole landscape 
has something of Roman dignity and restraint. 

As we toiled upward the vineyards climbed with us, 
all light-soaked, warmest golden green as the sun 
slanted through them, and turned the groves of oak to 
spots of cool color and the rare hay-fields to pale. 



244 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

pearly gray. The vines have routed the trees, save 
these stout oaks, invaded the gardens, and taken pos- 
session of the soil, crowding out the grain and pasture- 
lands that the Rolands saw in their many journeys 
to and from Le Clos. We passed long files of heavy 
wagons, laden with wine-casks, and teams of beautiful 
white oxen with padded foreheads as we climbed to 
the hamlet of Theize. 

It clung to its mountain ridge, a pinky-yellow mass 
of houses, a chateau shorn of its tower, and a little 
chapel. Well below it in a dip of the hill nestled a 
tiny burg; at the end of its only street rose a high, 
yellow wall and a lofty gate guarded by chestnut- 
trees, which might have been the entrance to a con- 
vent or a barracks. This was Le Clos, truly well 
named. 

Beyond the gate lay a grassy court, surrounded by 
stone outbuildings — grange, barn, the utile of a coun- 
try-seat; on the other side of the house stretched the 
dulce^ an English garden, enclosed on two sides by a 
broad stone terrace, with orange and lemon trees in 
tubs. To the right, beyond the garden, lay the orchard 
and vineyard; to the left, on the other side of a narrow 
lane, the kitchen-garden. The trees, chestnuts and 
sycamores, with a solemn hemlock here and there, 
are newcomers since Manon's time, but the flowering 
shrubs and lilacs, and the long hedge of the strange, 
striped Provence roses, which made the sweet June air 
sweeter, were hers, and close at hand in the vegetable- 
garden were the descendants of those artichokes and 
fruits that she besought Bosc to help her save from 
beetles and caterpillars. From the lower terrace she 



LE CLOS, VILLEFRANCHE, AND LYONS 245 

must have looked down over a vast expanse of country 
that has hardly changed in aspect since Louis XVI 
was king. Some towers have been razed, some villas 
and chateaux added, and the vines have swept all 
before them. But the streamlet of Beauvallon runs, 
a slender thread of silver, at the foot of the hillside, the 
chapel of Saint Hippolite, the chateau of Brossette, hold 
their old place in the wide prospect that is humanized, 
as are the landscapes of the Old World, by tradition 
and association. Manon's dark-locked, white-robed fig- 
ure is only one of a procession that memory marshals 
here, where Roman legionary and Saracen invader and 
Louis XIV poet follow each other, Boileau as near 
Manon in point of time when she looked across the 
wall down into the valley as she is to us to-day. Her 
shade should walk in the garden, for she loved it; the 
flowers and fruit were her special care, and the evenings 
of busy days were often spent strolling on the terrace 
to breathe the sweet-scented air. Sometimes, in rare, 
perfect hours, when the air was crystal-clear, there 
floated into her charmed sight a wonderful iridescent 
mountain peak, the glittering crest of Mont Blanc ris- 
ing in the east above the clouds like a fata morgana. 
The day I spent at the Clos was warm, a light mist 
veiled even the distant ranges of the Beaujolais, and 
naturally the "Cat Mountain," as the peasants pro- 
saically call the "dread and silent mount," remained 
invisible. 

The exterior of the Roland house, built in the begin- 
ning of the eighteenth century, of the usual type — a 
main building {corps de hdtiment) flanked by a pavilion 
at either end and roofed with red tiles — has remained 



246 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

unchanged. Few alterations have been made in the 
commodious, airy rooms; Madame Roland's chamber, 
with its heavily beamed ceiling, and its wide view from 
the small-paned, low windows, has never been re- 
arranged, and one room is still called "/a chambre de 
Lanthenas." 

Many things remain that have known the touch of 
vanished hands — the brass wall-fountain in the din- 
ing-room, the canon's silver crucifix, long buried in 
the garden, and disinterred only when the revolution- 
ary storm had abated; books with Roland's name in 
them, arms collected by him in the billiard-room, and 
his bust by Chinard. There are few family portraits; 
Madame Roland's are at La Rosiere, the La Tour 
pastels of M. and Mme. Phlipon have been sent to 
the museum in Lyons. There remain only an oil- 
painting of the canon and a lovely head of an unknown 
woman. 

The tempest of the Terror swept through this quiet 
place, dispersing its modest treasures. Though the 
wax seals of the revolutionary emissaries are still 
shown on some of the doors, they did not protect the 
property from pillage by the people whom the owners 
had nursed and taught. The house was looted, and 
the furniture was carried off by the peasants. "It 
came from the Clos" was the explanation offered to 
account for any unusual luxury in the neighboring 
cottages. Years after the Terror the cure of Theize 
returned to Eudora Roland's husband a sum of money 
intrusted to him by a penitent who in his youth had 
robbed Le Clos. 

Manon's happiest days were spent at La Platiere. 



LE CLOS, VILLEFRANCHE, AND LYONS 247 

Her country life was as full of duties as of dreams; 
there was constant occupation, even hard work, in- 
doors and out, and those enchanting evening hours 
among the roses on the terrace were the crown of her 
labors. "In the country," she wrote Bosc, "I for- 
give everything. When you know I am there you are 
permitted to show just what you are while you are 
writing; you may be eccentric, you may preach to me, 
you may be gruff, if you like. I have plenty of indul- 
gence, and my friendship tolerates every mood and 
harmonizes with every tone." 

Perhaps one reason for this gay good humor was 
that in the country Manon was mistress of her own 
household, for the grumbling mother-in-law remained 
in Villefranche, and, after shilly-shallying for several 
years, Dominique, the eldest brother, ceded the Clos 
to the Rolands. The letters to Bosc and to her hus- 
band during Manon's long villeggiatura express her 
lively interest and active participation in country pur- 
suits and pleasures. With her wonted energy she gave 
herself to her new vocation of lady-farmer, and applied 
her intelligence to the practical details of rural life. 
Here she also realized her ideal, the love in a cottage 
that Rousseau had pictured so winningly. Indeed, she 
never seemed so unconscious, so spontaneously joyous, 
as during those long, sweet summers at Le Clos. She 
had always loved nature; there she studied nature. 
The wonder and dehght, the "delicious tears," the 
exaltation of her girlhood in the forest of Meudon 
returned to her. But, as always with Manon, action 
accompanied emotion. A keen observer and a seeker 
for causes, her studies in botany and natural history 



248 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

were revived and applied to her garden and orchard; 
Rousseau made way for Linnaeus. Bosc was her men- 
tor, and her letters to him were filled with questions 
that give us a high opinion of the diversity and extent 
of his knowledge, and the letters are not all those of an 
amateur agriculturist. They are the blithest Manon 
ever penned; sometimes they are as frolicsome as 
though she had dipped her quill in the foam of the 
must: 

''Eh! Bonjour done, notre ami! It is a long time 
since I wrote to you, but it is almost a month since I 
have touched a pen. I am imbibing some of the tastes 
of the beast whose milk is restoring my health. I am 
growing dreadfully asinine, and busy myself with all 
the Httle cares of piggish country life. I am preserv- 
ing pears, which will be delicious, we are drying grapes 
and plums, we are bleaching and making up linen. 
We lunch on white wine, and then He on the grass to 
sleep ourselves sober; we work at the vintage, and 
rest after it in the woods or in the fields. We are 
shaking down the nuts; we have gathered all the fruits 
for winter, and have spread them out in the attics. 
. . . We make the Doctor (Lanthenas) work. Heaven 
knows. Good-by, we must breakfast and afterwards 
go in a crowd to gather almonds. 

" Salut, sante et amitie pardessus tout." (October 
12, 1787.) 

"Hang thyself, greedy Crillon ! We are making 
preserves and mulled wine, resinet (sic), dried pears, 
and bonbons, and you are not here to taste them ! Such 
are my occupations at present, my elegant friend, and 
meantime we are busy with the vintage." (October i, 
1788.) 



LE CLOS, VILLEFRANCHE, AND LYONS 249 

Even after the tocsin of the Revolution had roused 
an echo in Manon's heart, nature, springtime, the 
vernal landscape charmed her to forgetfulness of pub- 
He affairs. 

"A truce to politics ! . . . The weather is deHcious; 
in six days the country has changed so that it is un- 
recognizable: the vines and the walnut-trees were as 
black as they are in winter; the waving of a magic 
wand could not have changed the aspect of everything 
more completely than has the warmth of a few fine 
days; everything is growing green and bursting into 
leaf. ... I would wilUngly forget public affairs and 
human discussions, contented to put my house in or- 
der and watch my hens lay, and to care for our rab- 
bits. I wish to think no more of the revolutions of 
empires." (May 17, 1790.) 

There was justification for Manon's enthusiasm. 
Toil in field and vineyard had kept something of an- 
tique Virgilian grace. The vintage was hardly changed 
since its first-fruits were hung on Liber's altar. Disci- 
pline was relaxed, and the workers drank freely of the 
new wine, even the babies revelled in the must, and 
tumbled and sprawled like the abandoned infants of 
a carven bacchanal. The great white oxen, with their 
fragrant burdens and vine-crowned heads, the splashed 
peasants bending under the big baskets of grapes, the 
purple-stained casks foaming over on to the wine-soaked 
earth, would not have been unfamiliar to an old Ro- 
man ghost revisiting his farm. 

Like all good housewives, Manon shared the arduous 
delights of une grande lessive, when an acre of grass dis- 
appeared under home-spun linen drying and bleaching 



250 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

under a noonday sun, and the huge sheets flapped like 
sails on their lines; when down at the brook-side the 
washerwomen pounded and soaped and rinsed to an 
animated accompaniment of gossip and laughter. 
Later, basketful after basketful, overflowing with 
snowy masses of linen, was carried up to the press- 
room, counted and carefully laid away in trim piles, 
between sprigs of vervain and lavender, for the chate- 
laine knew her napkins by heart, and called each sheet 
by name. It was a sweet, wholesome task, not unfit 
for gentle ladies; even to-day Nausicaa does not seem 
very far away from a grande lessive in the South. 

On Ascension Day fell the local fete or the Vogue of 
Theize, when peasants from all over the countryside 
gathered at the Clos for a merrymaking. This May 
festival is probably a survival of some pagan holiday 
when the sacrificial far or wheat-cake was borne in a 
solemn progress through the fields and gardens, for the 
principal ceremony of the Vogue is still the carrying of 
a huge brioche around the premises in a dignified pro- 
cession, "musique en tetey" fifes, violins, and bagpipes; 
afterwards, in reverent silence, the brioche is cut and 
distributed by the chief of the Vogue, and the dancing 
begins. The, fete lasts two days, and is still held at Le 
Clos, Madame Roland's great-granddaughter presid- 
ing over it. 

But it was not only for a merrymaking that the 
country folk came to the manor; its mistress, like the 
chatelaine of the castle, was the physician, often the 
nurse, of the peasants. She dispensed tisanes and 
poultices and simple drugs, she took long rides on 
horseback to visit the sick, she was the Lady Bountiful 



LE CLOS, VILLEFRANCHE, AND LYONS 251 

of Theize and Boitier. In prison one of her sweetest 
memories was the confidence and gratitude of the 
people she had helped and nursed. ''They loved me, 
and my absence was mourned with tears." 

There were guests, too, at Le Clos, and an easy, 
informal hospitality. These guests were generally 
men. Lanthenas was a constant visitor, and Bancal 
des Issarts was at home there. Many of the Rolands' 
friends were Protestants; all were serious-minded, with 
cultivated tastes; inventors, pastors, scientists, most of 
them interesting, some of them famous. Though there 
were few women among her visitors, Manon promised 
Bosc, if he could find time to give her, "the society of 
an Italian lady [Madame Chevandier], full of spirit, 
grace, and talent," and "the company of a German 
lady [Madame Braun, a Protestant of Mulhouse] who 
was naturally of a sweet disposition, rather strict in 
her conduct, which was formed by republican stand- 
ards; simple in her manners, who united rare goodness 
to an uncommon degree of learning." To the house- 
parties were added the petty nobihty and the church- 
men of the neighborhood. There were few luxuries at 
Le Clos, but the guests enjoyed "perfect liberty, whole- 
some food, excellent water, tolerable wine, walks and 
rides, long chats, and diverting readings." 

Le Clos was Eudora's paradise. There she played 
in the garden, gathered flov/ers, "herself their elder 
sister," as her mother wrote, hung about the barn, 
and even picked up an oath or two when the vigilant 
maternal eye was ofF her. She was a mystery and a 
trial to her mother; an "elf," even a "demon" at 
times, obstinate, indifferent, lazy, and capricious. Re- 



252 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

proofs, suppers of dry bread, whippings, even solemn 
sermons from an absent father, were of no avail. 
"This Papa who scolds all the time, qa rrCennuie^^ she 
replied to paternal remonstrances. Headstrong Ro- 
land and self-willed Manon were amazed at their off- 
spring's wilfulness. To Manon she seemed a change- 
ling at times, for Eudora shirked study and was averse 
to any mental effort. Her character, her tastes, or 
lack of them, were incomprehensible to her mother, 
who remembered her own studious, docile childhood. 
Insistence on inherited tendencies was not familiar to 
philosophers then, and she failed to take Eudora's 
grandparents into account. She forgot the frivolous 
Grandmama Roland, greedy, exacting, and fond of 
excitement, and Papa Phlipon, dissipated and pleasure- 
loving, in her wonder over her little girl's strange 
character. There is rather a pathetic glimpse of 
Eudora's babyhood in one of her mother's letters, 
that may partly explain the Httle one's disHke of books: 
"In a study, between two desks, where close applica- 
tion exacts perfect quiet, it is natural that a child 
should be bored, above all, if while she is forbidden 
to sing, or to chatter to herself, or to speak to us, she 
is obliged to learn certain tasks that require atten- 
tion" (December i, 1787). Poor little butterfly, 
fluttering "between two desks" in the dust of a 
library. Was it astonishing that always associating 
books with enforced silence and immobility, a playful 
and active young creature grew to dislike them } 

Apparently, Eudora was a robust, pretty child, pas- 
sionately devoted to her mother, indolent and over- 
fond of play, but truthful and fearless. She must 



LE CLOS, VILLEFRANCHE, AND LYONS 253 

have had a fine constitution to resist the boluses and 
bitter drafts which her apprehensive parent con- 
stantly administered to her, and naturally, like all 
healthy young animals, preferred frolics to studies. 
She loved to dance and to draw, to sing and to sew, 
to use her hands and feet instead of her head. Though 
she was perverse, she adored her mother and reverenced 
her father. In fine, a roguish, affectionate, brave lit- 
tle romp, who would have more than satisfied many 
mothers, and to-day would have been the pride of a 
kindergarten. Madame Roland acknowledged rather 
sadly that, if she could have given all her time to 
Eudora's education, the child's indifference and lack 
of industry might have been overcome, but Manon 
was a wife before she was a mother, and Roland's 
claims upon her time came first. Rousseau, rever- 
ently consulted, for once yielded no message for his 
disciple (December i, 1787). In his educational 
scheme parents had no occupations or duties in life 
other than the care and training of their offspring. 
This was an impossible ideal for Manon, scribe and 
house-mistress, to strive for; she resolved, however, 
never to lose her temper with the little tease, to pun- 
ish her impersonally and judicially when punishment, 
alas, was necessary, and above all to try to make 
Eudora happier with her parents than with any one 
else. She succeeded admirably in becoming her 
daughter's best friend and confidant, and her most 
amusing companion. But she failed to inspire enthu- 
siasm for study or effort. 

How had Manon failed in her duty.? Was she to 
blame for Eudora's insensibility to the fine things of 



254 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

life ? How could her interest in them be awakened ? 
Manon asked herself and others. Her frankness in 
regard to her disappointment seems like insensibility; 
it is in reality an anxious seeking for an open sesame 
to a torpid mind and an insouciant disposition. She 
sought advice from Lavater (July 7, 1788) and other 
savants, and experimented with different systems and 
environments. But Eudora remained obdurate. The 
mild discipline of the convent of the Visitation, the 
gentle influence of Pastor Frossard's cultivated house- 
hold, left her unchanged. She continued to resist 
instruction. 

"We must not deceive ourselves; your daughter is 
affectionate. She loves me, she will be gentle; but she 
has not an idea, no grain of memory. She looks as 
though she had just left her nurse, and gives no prom- 
ise of intellect. She has embroidered a work-bag for 
me prettily and does a little needlework; otherwise she 
has developed no tastes, and I begin to believe we 
must not persist in expecting much, still less in exact- 
ing it," Manon wrote Roland in 1791. She was bit- 
terly disappointed. She had looked forward so eagerly 
to teaching her child, to studying with her, to reviving 
her old accomplishments for Eudora. Manon's pride 
suffered as well as her affection. But, though clear- 
sighted, she was never lacking in tenderness. Eudora's 
cough "rends" her heart. She "hates" Le Clos after 
a viper has been discovered in the garden, because 
Eudora might have been bitten. Daily bulletins of 
the child's health were sent to Roland and to Bosc. 
Manon wished that the latter might have a Eudora of 
his own, and if only a man like him in eighteen years 



LE CLOS, VILLEFRANCHE, AND LYONS 255 

from then could think so too — she might sing her Nunc 
Dimittis. 

Match-making already ! Manon was true to the tra- 
ditions of her people. She had already tried her hand 
at the business, and had persuaded the tepid Sophie 
to accept the withered hand of an aged captain of 
grenadiers, the Chevalier Pierre Dragon de Gomie- 
court, in 1782. Two years afterwards Manon advo- 
cated the marriage of the brilliant Henriette to a 
widower of seventy-seven years, the bigoted, haughty 
Seigneur de Vouglans, who had written a bloodthirsty 
refutation of Beccaria ! Mademoiselle Phlipon had de- 
tested this upholder of ancient abuses, and expressed 
her feelings freely in her letters to Henriette. Great 
must have been the reverence of Madame Roland for 
the holy estate, for M. de Vouglans in becoming a 
parti for her friend lost all his terrors. Was the girl's 
standard so much higher than the matron's because 
experience had hardened and blunted her ? Was the 
idealist growing sensible .f* Or did she feel that the 
freedom and dignity conferred by marriage were worth 
many sacrifices ? French society had no place for the 
old maid, and January often wed with May. 

There had been in those first autumn days at Le 
Clos a fly in Manon's box of balm, a misunderstanding 
with Bosc that dragged along for half a year. Bosc's 
father had treated Roland by letter; after the physi- 
cian's death (April 4, 1784) Madame Roland, as her 
husband's health had not improved, consulted another 
doctor. Bosc took this fancied slight to his father's 
science deeply to heart. He left his friends suddenly 
and coldly (September 23, 1784), and for many months 



256 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

answered Manon's propitiatory letters, even Roland's 
affectionate pleading, briefly and dryly. Naturally ex- 
tremely sensitive and rather exacting, Bosc was at the 
time of the quarrel in an unwonted state of nervous 
excitability. 

There is no doubt that during Manon's stay in Paris 
Bosc's friendship and admiration for her had quickened 
into another feeling. His father's death and the new 
responsibilities it laid on his young shoulders, his respect 
for Manon, his affection for Roland, his family tradi- 
tions of honor, and his own fine ideals, while they welded 
his nascent passion into a noble form, were potent for 
unhappiness. The poor boy, for he was one in years 
though already a savant, loved Manon. The deep 
melancholy that she ascribed solely to his bereavement 
had a double cause. Roland, whose manners with 
younger men were singularly engaging, divined some- 
thing of Bosc's complex emotion, and wrote him 
kindly, tactful messages. Bosc's misery found expres- 
sion in a letter to Manon just after she left Paris for 
Amiens. 

"Everything agitates and disquiets me. Would you 
believe that having noticed that the word friend was 
repeated more often than formerly in your letters, my 
piece of mind was troubled } Good-by. Be happy 
always. Perhaps I shall not reach that degree of cor- 
ruption w^herein others' happiness is a torture for us, 
but I believe I am on the way to it; I need some force 
to turn me back from it." (June i, 1784.) 

While in this condition of emotional excitement, it 
was only natural that Bosc should have been easily 
wounded. Something of Manon's personal attraction 



1 




L . A . C . B05C 



Taken from the voluTie Le Naturaliste Bosc, by Auguste Key, published at Versailles, 
1901, by Librairie Leon Besnard; at Paris, 1901, by Librairie Alphonse Picard 



LE CLOS, VILLEFRANCHE, AND LYONS 257 

informs her letters to him during the period of his 
estrangement. She coaxed, argued, scolded, made 
little Eudora, whom Bosc was very fond of, her moth- 
er's advocate, and sturdily refused to take offense, or 
to alter the affectionate tone of her letters. We won- 
der that Bosc could have resisted such gentle pleading. 
Never was an olive-branch more ingratiatingly prof- 
fered. When he finally accepted Manon's "hearty kiss 
and good box on the ear," the peace pact was signed 
for the rest of their hves. Madame Roland possessed 
the rare gift of making friends of her lovers. It is true 
that formerly friendship was of a warmer constitution 
than it is to-day, and more closely resembled its dan- 
gerous little brother. An eighteenth-century Terence 
might have written of it : 

"In friendship are all these evils: wrongs, 
Suspicions, enmities, reconciliations, war and peace." 

Not that the course of platonic affection ran per- 
fectly smooth after this episode, but Bosc's feeling for 
Manon gradually grew purely fraternal, and years 
afterwards he had so utterly forgotten the confusion 
of desires and the feverish longing which Manon her- 
self had exorcised so sweetly, that he could sincerely 
write: "Many people beheved, owing to my intimacy 
with her, that our relations were closer, but I was 
never in love with her." 

Though the duties of Bosc's post kept him in Paris, 
Lanthenas had plenty of leisure and spent a large 
share of it at Le Clos. He passed part of the winter 
in Lyons with Roland. His devotion to his friends 



258 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

seemed flawless, but the shock of the Revolution was 
to shatter it — with much else that appeared enduring. 

Life in Villefranche, where part of the year was 
spent, was "very austere." The Rolands occupied the 
second floor of the big old family house, which they 
shared with the mother and the eldest son, Dominique 
Roland, a town councillor as well as a canon, an 
academician and director of the nuns at the hospital. 
A younger and gentler brother, Laurent, was an occa- 
sional visitor. In spite of the politesse du foyer^ the 
hearth-side courtesy that sweetens domestic life in 
France, there were difiicult moments to pass in the 
Roland household. The mother, *'of the age of the 
century," "venerable through her years, terrible 
through her temper," was as critical as she was help- 
less. She was given to gormandizing, and each "little 
carouse" was followed by a short illness. She loved 
company, gave dinner invitations thoughtlessly, spent 
most of her time at cards, and put Manon's patience to 
proof, who philosophically decided that life with a hus- 
band like Roland would be too happy to be real without 
some petty annoyance; and, having satisfied herself that 
the mama-in-law had no heart, she ceased trying to 
win it, and took her scoldings and criticisms with 
relative serenity. Bosc as well as Roland was her 
confidant, and all the family jars were carried to him, 
which undoubtedly helped Manon to bear them. 

Canon Roland, too, was difiicult to live with. 
Though like most of the higher clergy of his century 
he was a man of the world, with a fondness for litera- 
ture and research, he was a conservative in politics, a 



LE CLOS, VILLEFRANCHE, AND LYONS 259 

dogmatist in religion, and a despot in disposition. 
Manon was on excellent terms with him; prejudiced 
and domineering as he was, he had yielded to her 
spell. One of her methods of conciliating him was 
rather questionable, or would have been in another 
age and environment. She wrote of it to Bosc quite 
unabashed: "I leave him the satisfaction of thinking 
that his dogmas appear as evident to me as they seem 
to him, and I behave in a manner suitable to a pro- 
vincial mother of a family who should set a good 
example to all. As I was very devout in my first 
youth, I know the Scriptures and even the church 
services as well as my philosophers, and I willingly 
make use of my early learning, which edifies him very 
much." This is far from admirable; what follows is 
still less so: "The sincerity and tenderness of my heart, 
my facility in yielding for the good of others, when I 
can do so without offending truth and honesty, make 
me what I should be, quite naturally, and without 
eflPort. Keep this burst of confidence in petto.^' 

Not content with confessing dissimulation, Manon 
prides herself on it as a proof of the sincerity of her 
nature 1 A strange contradiction in a usually honest 
and truthful person. It was one she shared with her 
contemporaries. The church was so integral a part 
of social and national life that to abstain from its ser- 
vices would have caused a public scandal. Still to 
conform to something that it would have been difficult 
and even dangerous to oppose was hardly meritorious, 
and assuredly offered no cause for self-gratulation. 
But Manon was a hardened offender. She had "edi- 
fied her neighbor" by attending church in her girlhood 



26o MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

after she lost even the wish to beheve, and she con- 
tinued "to set a good example to others" not only at 
Amiens, Villefranche, and Lyons, but at Le Clos, where 
the way of the outward conformer was indeed hard, 
as the village church of Theize was only reached by a 
long, stiff climb over the rocks. 

The sleepy, commonplace town of Villefranche, 
though it was more picturesque then than now, with 
its long walls and fortress-gates, displeased the Pari- 
sienne. She never mentioned the marvellously ornate 
fagade of Sainte Marie des Marais, which Gothic art 
had carved and chiselled like a reliquary, but then 
she had never referred to the grand old cathedral of 
Amiens. Perhaps she, with her contemporaries, for 
Gothic read barbarous. Her impressions of Ville- 
franche were, of course, communicated to Bosc. 

"Here the great luxury is that of the table. The 
smallest bourgeois household, a little above the com- 
mon people, offers more exquisite meals than the rich- 
est families of Amiens, and a good many of those in 
easy circumstances in Paris. A mean dwelling, a deli- 
cate table, elegant dress, constant and heavy gaming, 
that is the style of this flat-roofed town, where the 
streets serve as drains for the sewage. On the other 
hand, they are not stupid here; they speak well, with- 
out accent or solecisms, the tone of society is courteous 
and agreeable, but they are a little — that is to say, a 
great deal — short of cultivation. . . . Here Is the 
opposite of Amiens; there the women are generally 
better than the men; here, on the contrary, it is the 
women v/ho show their provincial varnish most 
plainly." (April 22, 1785.) 



LE CLOS, VILLEFRANCHE, AND LYONS 261 

Of her domestic life Madame Roland wrote: "You 
ask me what I am doing, and you do not believe that 
I have the same occupations as I had at Amiens. I 
have truly less leisure to devote myself to the latter, 
or to combine them with agreeable studies. I am 
now, above all else, a housewife, and I don't lack busi- 
ness of this kind. My brother wishes me to take 
care of the house, which his mother had not kept for 
years, and which he was tired of keeping or of leaving 
partly to the servants. 

"This is the way my time is employed. After rising 
I busy myself with my husband and child; I have one 
of them read while I give them both their breakfast; 
then I leave them together in the study, or only the 
little one with her nurse, when the papa is absent, and 
I inspect all the business of the household, from the 
cellar to the attic — the fruits, wine, linen, and other 
details provide me with some new care every day. 
If there is time before dinner (and note that we dine 
at noon, and we must be tidy, because we are apt to 
have company that the mama loves to invite) I spend 
it in the study in the work that I have always shared 
with my husband. After dinner we remain together 
for some time, and I always stay with my mother-in- 
law until she has visitors; in the interval I sew. 

"As soon as I am free I go up-stairs to the study, 
and begin or continue to write. When evening comes 
the good brother joins us; we read the newspapers or 
something better; occasionally several men come in. 
If it is not I who am the reader, I sew quietly while 
listening, and I take care that the child does not in- 
terrupt us, for she never leaves us except during some 



262 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

formal meal, when as I wish that she should not 
annoy any one, and that no one should pay attention 
to her, she stays in her room, or goes out with the 
nurse, and does not appear until dessert is over. I 
make only such visits as are absolutely necessary; I 
go out sometimes, though rarely until now, to walk 
in the afternoon with my husband and Eudora. 

"With some shades of difference, each day sees me 
go around the same circle. English, Italian, trans- 
porting music, all these are left far behind. These are 
tastes and acquirements that remain under the ashes, 
where I shall find them again to teach my Eudora as 
she develops." 

This domesticity was not without diversions. The 
mama saw company daily, and occasionally there was 
a formal dinner, with food enough to victual a regi- 
ment. Manon passed the contribution purse at 
church, and sometimes even went to a dance. But 
she had little in common with her neighbors, and kept 
apart as much as she could from the ^^ canaille ca- 
ladoise," as she scornfully termed the best society of 
Villefranche. 

Life in Lyons was gayer and free from petty cares. 
There for two months every year she enjoyed leisure, 
and even a little luxury. There was no carping mother- 
in-law to propitiate, and Manon had Roland to her- 
self. Her position was an assured and pleasant one. 
She had a cosey apartment on the quai, overlooking the 
river, in a sunny, cheerful quarter, with a guest-room 
for Lanthenas when he chose to occupy it, a subscrip- 
tion to the theatre, and the use of a friend's carriage 
for visits and drives. There were dinner-parties fol- 



LE CLOS, VILLEFRANCHE, AND LYONS 263 

lowed by conversation instead of cards, more time for 
reading than at Villefranche, and the cultivation of 
interesting acquaintances. A letter to one of them, a 
certain Varenne de Fenille, merits citation. This brief 
for the study of English letters was written in reply to 
some objections made to Roland's theory that English 
w^ould one day become the universal language: 

''March 21, 1789, Lyons. . . . You ask me if the 
Enghsh language is harmonious, and you insist very 
adroitly on the difficulty for foreigners of its pronun- 
ciation as a kind of proof of the negative. To answer 
that question I wish that you could hear an educated 
Englishman recite the fine verses of his great national 
poets; the nobility of his accents, the facility of his 
delivery, the justness of the cadence, or the measure 
of the rhythm, the full tones and sonorous termina- 
tions would persuade you in spite of yourself, and your 
conquered ear would convey to your mind an idea of 
the beauties that want of knowledge had not per- 
mitted you to seize. ... I will add that if there 
remains still something to say for the intrinsic diffi- 
culty of English, difficulty that a little habit soon sur- 
mounts, and that necessity or pleasure never considers, 
it is made up for a hundred times by freedom in the 
use of elisions, very frequent in English, an amazing 
liberty in contracting or extending words in a way that 
leaves all its vivacity to the imagination, all its fire to 
sentiment, and all its grandeur to genius, which ex- 
presses all the accents of emotion, and opens to the 
poet as to the orator the most vast career. 

"Our relations with the United States, the advantage 
of commerce with them, etc., will spread the necessity 



264 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

of cultivating their language through all parts of the 
world. As to the pleasure of cultivating it — Ah ! 
Monsieur, 'if the works of pure imagination make 
more proselytes than those of philosophy, of physical 
science, or of lofty morality,* what tongue should be 
cultivated as much as English, which unites them all ? 

"They are the people of Europe who possess the 
strongest and tenderest imagination, the most varied 
and interesting novels, and if not the most chastened 
perhaps the most pleasing drama. 

"You have learned Italian for Ariosto, Tasso, Metas- 
tasio, Goldoni, etc. You are at the same time a man 
of learning and a man of taste, and you have not 
learned Enghsh ! I do not say for Locke, Newton, and 
so many others, but for its Milton, sublime in his 
beauties, astonishing even in his digressions, fresh and 
touching as Homer in his details and descriptions; a 
true epic poet, with whom we have no one to compare; 
less fecund, perhaps, than the inexhaustible Ariosto, 
less formal than Tasso, and perhaps as great as both 
of them. 

"You have not learned it [English] for Thompson 
[sic], the amiable singer of the seasons, rich and majes- 
tic as the nature that he paints like a master, worthy 
to sit at the foot of his creator's throne, whose divine 
breath seems to have inspired him. Happy husband- 
man ! You who tread with pleasure the fields culti- 
vated by your care; with Virgil in your hand you 
apply to yourself the /or^Mwa^oj- nimium, and you have 
never fixed wet eyes on the verses of Thompson [sic] 1 
And Pope, so wise and so brilliant, has not brought to 
your spirit with the sweetness of his song that of his 



LE CLOS, VILLEFRANCHE, AND LYONS 265 

philosophy, also, in those moments when the most 
tranquil soul sighs in secret over the trials of life. 
And the ingenious Dryden, the witty Congreve, the 
voluptuous Rochester, have they never called a smile 
to your lips ? But how have you never sought to 
know Shakespeare, about whom the English are always 
enthusiastic, in spite of all our much-vaunted perfec- 
tions ? Why have you not been curious to know on 
what was founded the admiration, the enchantment, 
the transports of an enlightened nation for an author 
who thinks proper to neglect the three unities, to 
make many people die on the stage, to place side by 
side pictures of common life and the most lofty deeds, 
precisely as they are in nature, and to have had no 
other master, no other law, than it and his genius ? 

"Look, then, I beg you, in Othello for that which 
is lacking in Orosmane, which makes us pass with far 
more terror through all the stages of jealousy. Com- 
pare, if you have the courage, the shade of Ninus to 
that of Hamlet. Find by examining it how our Ducis 
has frozen Lear, by arranging it in the French fashion, 
and correcting it according to the rules of Aristotle, 
just as our grandmothers put our feet on little boards 
between strips of wood to make us turn them out, or 
made us wear iron collars to oblige us to hold our- 
selves erect. Consider the charming characters of 
women so delicately drawn by Shakespeare's brush, 
his tender Cordelia, the innocent Desdemona, the un- 
fortunate Ophelia. Conceive, if you can, how the 
same man could unite so much grace to so much 
strength; how he has made us pale with fright, or 
thrill in response to the sweetest emotions, carry ten- 



266 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

derness and terror to their height, and follow or pre- 
cede them with philosophy or gayety. Call his writ- 
ings monstrous if you will, but you will read them over 
twenty times, and far from imputing the enjoyment of 
his works as a crime to a whole nation, you will share 
it in spite of all that our Le Bossus can say. . . . 

"But let us leave the follies of the stage, and com- 
mune with ourselves in novels, sweet fictions that feed 
tender hearts: world of illusions, into which when 
unhappy they throw themselves to find other noble 
hearts to cherish and to pity, O ! for this. Monsieur, 
you will have to leave Italy, for I do not imagine that 
the insipid Chiari, with his silly adventures and still 
sillier characters, will keep you there two minutes. 
Well, then, where will you go ? Seek for adventures 
with our knights, or sail the Tendre river with our 
Celadons, for I can't fancy that the metaphysics of 
our modern novelists will please you any better than 
the bad company that some of them give us. You will 
name Julie to me, and I reply that I read it every year, 
but I dare to say, in spite of all my respect and love 
for that writer of ours to whom I give the preference, 
it is not as a novel that his Julie is admirable. This 
delightful work becomes so by beauties foreign, so to 
say, to its nature, and only their intrinsic excellence 
prevents them from being found out of place. Rous- 
seau, himself, was the first to confess that Richardson 
was his master. 

"No people can offer a novel capable of sustaining 
a comparison with Clarissa; it is the masterpiece of 
its kind, the model and the despair of all imitators. 
Our pygmies with their compasses will discuss its pro- 



LE CLOS, VILLEFRANCHE, AND LYONS 267 

portions and blame its length, but they themselves 
fall on their knees and confess that they know of noth- 
ing as fine. Meantime the mass of our novels is in- 
finitely more inferior to English fiction of the second 
order than Julie differs in perfection from Clarissa. 
If the English were not also brave, wise, and good 
politicians and profound philosophers, I would say 
that they are the novelists of Europe. There are 
many of them, and their romances bear the impress of 
an exquisite sensibility, of great knowledge of the 
human heart, and of a touching melancholy. Field- 
ings [sic] and several others, even women, have entered 
this career with honor and success. However, do not 
imagine that a tinge of consumption makes me lean 
toward the English, whom our gay folks reproach for 
their sombre colors; if I am deliciously touched, I am 
also heartily amused, and whoever has been a witness 
of the frank merriment, the loud laughs, and the kind 
of delirium to which the English abandon themselves 
in their theatres, will admit that the same amount of 
feeling renders us equally susceptible to the deepest 
passions and the gentlest affections, the most spirited 
pictures and the most amiable fancies. 

"Nevertheless, I can only guess at the beauties of 
the English tongue, and if I had not been helped by 
translations I could not speak of many of the authors 
who have used it. I learned English without a mas- 
ter; I heard it spoken in London only a month. I 
read English prose, now I must study its poetry. In 
spite of my taste for languages, my passion for litera- 
ture, I love my husband better than all of them, and 
as he is busy with [Industrial] Arts before everything, 



268 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

it is now several years since I have known or seen or 
understood anything but [Industrial] Arts. It is only 
for a holiday, and always together, that we make little 
excursions into the noble domain of literature, to 
which, forgetting all the Arts in the world, I hope to 
return some day. . . ." 

The centres of intellectual life in magnificent Lyons, 
as in dull Villefranche, were their academies. Roland 
was a member of them both, as well as of a dozen 
others. These provincial academies were seed-plots 
of culture in eighteenth-century France; they had little 
in common with the puerile literary accademie of de- 
cadent Italy, but were associations for the study of 
sciences, letters, and the industrial arts. They offered 
prizes for the best essays on philosophy and morals, on 
economics, agriculture, and applied science; they in- 
stituted courses of lectures, and in many instances 
opened schools of superior and technical studies to 
supplement the deficiencies of the obsolete universi- 
ties. The members wrote papers, gave public lectures, 
and receptions to any wandering lights of learning that 
passed through the town. Roland was a member of 
fifteen academies, as such membership was a dignified 
and practical method of extending his relations with 
scientific men. The academic archives of Villefranche 
and Lyons bear witness to his activity. He wrote 
on many subjects, ranging from a Discours sur les 
femmes, and Abridged Reflections on Chemical Affini- 
ties and on Fermentation, to Causes of the Decadence 
of Commerce, and of the Population of Lyons, be- 
sides papers on the subjects he had already treated 
in his Dictionnaire — oils, soaps, dyeing, leathers, and 




JEAN MARIE ROLAND DE LA PLATI£RE, MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR 

From a portrait drauii and engraved by Nicolas Colbert 



LE CLOS, VILLEFRANCHE, AND LYONS 269 

skins. As Roland was an enthusiastic and industri- 
ous member of both the academies, Manon's sphere 
of activities was enlarged, and his papers were re- 
modelled, polished, and copied by her. Until dif- 
ferences of political opinion relaxed or broke old 
bonds, these reunions were a source of genuine plea- 
sure to both husband and wife. When Roland be- 
came minister of the interior in 1792, his letter to the 
Academy of Lyons proves that in despite of many 
political feuds between them, his relations with the 
majority of the members were cordial and friendly. 



CHAPTER XIII 
RUMBLINGS BEFORE THE STORM 

Thus five years passed in a quiet round of humble 
duties and sober pleasures. There were some vexa- 
tions; free-trading Roland naturally sided with the 
manufacturer against the merchant, with the people of 
Lyons against the King's officials and their exactions. 
There was no title and no retiring pension, though 
Manon did not despair of winning them some day, 
and tried to keep her name green in the "Bear's" 
memory (September i8, 1787). 

The household was somewhat cramped for money; 
Manon would have enjoyed passing more than two 
months a year in expensive Lyons, and a compara- 
tively small outlay would have made Le Clos the 
"bijou" of her ambitions, but no woman was ever 
more indifferent to externals, no one ever practised 
riches of spirit (as Manon's dear Saint Francois de 
Sales called it) more unconsciously; the opulence of 
her inner life overflowed her environment. Her illu- 
sions and enthusiasms still remained with her. Rous- 
seau was her mentor always, the enchanter "who made 
her forget everything, who could always awaken in her 
feelings that rendered her happy in spite of fate"; 
with him she sought sanctuary against discouragement 
and doubt. And Roland was still paramount in her 
heart. The little worries of her complicated house- 

270 



RUMBLINGS BEFORE THE STORM 271 

hold and her disappointment in Eudora were mere 
cloudlets on the azure of her happiness. Her letters 
were those of a lover, with a lover's anxieties and 
impatience in the absence of the beloved, and though 
more tranquil are as affectionate as those of Mademoi- 
selle Phlipon. During this stage of her life the in- 
spector was often absent on his official duties, and her 
imagination had full play. She idealized him, as she 
had Sophie, as she had La Blancherie, as she did the 
household tasks of Villefranche and the drudgery on 
the Dictionnaire. In the summer of 1789 Roland had 
a long and dangerous illness, and his wife's devotion 
not only saved his life, which was despaired of, but so 
sustained her that though she passed twelve days and 
nights in great suspense, without undressing and al- 
most without sleep, and then spent six months in fol- 
lowing the anxieties and alarms of a tedious convales- 
cence, her health was unbroken and her strength was 
doubled. Her care of her husband and his increasing 
dependence on her strengthened the bond between 
them. 

A short trip to Switzerland varied the gentle monot- 
ony of the Rolands' lives; they left home on June 17, 
1787, accompanied by Eudora and the cure of Long- 
pont, to visit Geneva, Berne, Lucerne, Zurich, SchafF- 
hausen, Bale, Strasburg, and Mulhouse, returning to 
Lyons by Besan9on and Chalons in July. In the 
course of their rapid journey they met Lavater, Albert 
Gosse, Gessner, Hofer, and other Swiss notabilities. 
Madame Roland wrote an account of her travels and 
a portion of her Voyage en Suisse was published 
anonymously in a Lyons magazine, Le Conservateur 



272 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

(vol. II, 1788). Later Champagneux included the 
Voyage in his edition of Madame Roland's works 
(1800, vol. III). Manon found in the intellectual 
cultivation and simple habits of the Swiss her repub- 
lican ideal, and saw on every hand the happy influ- 
ences of a popular government. She made many 
friends, and a souvenir of her Swiss tour still remains 
at La Rosiere: Lavater's silhouettes of the Rolands. 

During her life in the south Manon's interest in poli- 
tics was almost null. She yawned over the newspapers 
(February 10, 1787) and was interested in changes in 
the administration only so far as they affected her 
husband's situation. With a fair knowledge of the 
abuses and wrongs of the government, she contented 
herself with pitying its victims, notably the peasants, 
and abstained from useless criticisms. She accepted 
the status quo with more resignation than did Roland, 
and sagely strove to accommodate herself to it. No 
one had a keener sense of the essential injustice of the 
old regime. Few women knew more of the practical 
side of politics, of their influence on national prosperity. 
Her work on the Dictionnaire, her close companionship 
with Roland, had familiarized her to an unusual degree 
with industrial and economic questions. Her experi- 
ence in place-seeking had brought her close to the 
machinery of government. She had no illusions and 
apparently little hope. She felt the unrest and dis- 
content that were in the air, but saw no remedy for 
existing ills, and doubtless decided that it was easier 
to bear them quietly than to protest uselessly. Her 
own part in her country was so infinitesimal that 




MADAME ROLAND 

From a drawing by Danloux in the National Library of Paris (Faugere Legacy) 



RUMBLINGS BEFORE THE STORM 273 

her patriotism was latent, unsuspected by herself. Her 
experience had not been one to cherish enthusiasm; 
government by grace was grim of aspect seen from 
below the terraces of Versailles, where the arm of the 
law was extended to punish far more often than to 
protect. 

As a child Manon had lived in dread proximity to 
the place of execution, the Greve. Echoes from it 
reached her in her little cabinet among her books, and 
were prolonged in her letters to Sophie. It is curious 
to note these heralds of the great changes in the girls' 
correspondence; Manon's letters were generally intro- 
spective, and there is generally little space in them 
devoted to pubHc events. She was too busy forging 
a working philosophy of life, analyzing her own thoughts 
and sentiments, and exploring new continents of knowl- 
edge to give more than a few lines to the news of the 
day. The first national event that Manon mentioned 
in her letters was the illness of the King. It would 
seem difficult for a girl of high ideals, growing up 
under the evil rule of Louis XV, to look upon his 
demise as anything but a blessing to his people, yet 
Manon wrote: 

"The King received the sacrament on Saturday 
morning; to-day's bulletin gives sad thoughts. The 
news of his malady has affected me. . . . Though the 
obscurity of my birth, of my name, and my position 
seems to absolve me from interest in the government, 
I feel in spite of all that the general good concerns me. 
My country is something to me, my attachment to it 
forms a sensitive chord in my heart." 

There is no further mention of the final stage of the 



274 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

long dissolution of Louis XV, except a reference to the 
inoculation of the princes. A few months later Manon 
visited Versailles, where the spectacle of court life con- 
firmed her republican opinions. But she soon aban- 
doned her detached and critical attitude and responded 
to the enthusiasm all about her. She shared in the joy 
of the people at the return of the Parlement, yet she 
was judicious enough to realize that it was no barrier 
against the royal will, "and resembled old ruins that 
are reverenced for what they have been, though it is, 
of course, well to show respect for the laws and those 
who administer them." Manon ended a description of 
the fireworks and rejoicings in her quarter of Paris 
(from which the clergy ostentatiously abstained) by a 
eulogy of the new reign. She evidently shared the 
cheerful anticipations of the nation, its belief in the 
good-will and integrity of the young King, in his de- 
sire to right the misdeeds of his predecessor. His pro- 
jected economies, suppressions of sinecures, and re- 
forms in the administration were recognized with a full 
measure of gratitude. 

"Here we have enlightened and well-meaning min- 
isters [Turgot, Miromesnil, Maurepas], a young prince 
who is docile to their advice, and who is full of good 
intentions, an amiable and beneficent Queen, a polite, 
agreeable, and decent court, an honored legislative 
body, a charming people which only desires to be able 
to love its master, and a kingdom full of resources ! 
Ah, how happy we are going to be!" (November i6, 

I774-) 

"A charming people !" wrote Manon in a warm out- 
burst of feeling. Her next letter but one presents a 



RUMBLINGS BEFORE THE STORM 275 

very different picture of this same people. Two crimi- 
nals had been condemned, one to be burned, the other 
to be broken on the wheel, and the sentence was exe- 
cuted, as usual, on the Place de Greve. As usual, also, 
all Paris took a holiday and flocked to the spectacle as 
to an illumination or a theatre. From her windows on 
the Quai de I'Horloge Manon saw with horror the 
dense mass of people blocking the streets on their way 
to the Greve, crowding casements and balconies, and 
even swarming on the roofs to catch a glimpse of the 
execution. For twelve hours one wretched creature 
shrieked and writhed on the wheel; the unwearied spec- 
tators clapping their hands and shouting with joy. 
It was the first time that Manon had been brought 
face to face with the savage in man. This revelation 
of popular barbarity affected her deeply. She strove 
to find reasons for it, to reconcile it with her philosophi- 
cal speculations on the perfectibility of human nature. 
With the taint of the smoke in the air and the screams 
of the broken wretch (which were "heard even from 
mama's bed," where Manon had taken refuge from 
them and her own horrified thoughts) ringing in her 
ears, she tried to reconcile this ferocity with the theory 
of the non-existence of evil. "Are there then atrocious 
beings whose existence we do not suspect?" (The 
Terror answered Manon's question years too late.) 
"No, I cannot believe that man is born so wicked; it 
is his passions, either uncontrolled or badly directed, 
that produce these effects. ... Is there a certain 
ferocity, a real taste for blood, in the human heart ? 
But no, I cannot believe it; I think that we all love 
strong impressions, because they give us Hvely feelings; 



276 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

it is the same propensity that sends people of dcHcate 
taste to the theatre and the populace to the Greve." 

"Truly, human nature is not worthy of respect 
when one considers it in the mass,'* wrote Manon, look- 
ing down on this teeming human ant-hill. Strangely 
enough, Louis Blanc quotes this remark to prove 
Madame Roland's lack of love for the people ! He 
should have continued to quote, and added the sentence 
she wrote next day, after a night made hideous by the 
sound of agonizing cries and no less horrible applause. 
"I confess that I have at the same time great contempt 
and great love for men; they are so wicked and so mad 
that it is impossible not to despise them; on the other 
hand, they are so unhappy that one cannot help pity- 
ing and loving them" (December 14, 1774). 

This revelation of the wild beast in humanity prob- 
ably prepared Manon for the outbreaks of violence 
that followed the failure of hope in famishing breasts, 
as she wrote calmly of the bread riots of May, 1775, 
that followed the joyous anticipations of the new 
reign. For, in spite of a well-meaning king and an 
upright and resourceful comptroller-general, no mira- 
cles were forthcoming; loaves were not multiplied nor 
cruses filled, neither peace nor plenty had come to a 
starving France. One lean year only had passed since 
Louis XVI's accession, when a hungry mob filled the 
great court at Versailles and clamored for bread. A 
grim reply answered its petition of grievances: a gal- 
lows forty feet high for the two leaders. 

Next day the disorder reached Paris; Manon wrote 
of what she saw of it at the end of a letter devoted to 
a discussion of the philosophical speculations of Leib- 



RUMBLINGS BEFORE THE STORM 277 

nitz and Helvetius. She described the pillage of the 
markets, the merely formal resistance of the soldiers, 
the bakers closing the shutters of their shops and 
throwing the loaves from the windows, the grenadiers 
protecting the ovens from the impatient crowd waiting 
to carry off the fresh bread, finally the establishment 
of a maximum price, and the queues of people who 
stood patiently in line for hours, each one with his 
eight sols in his hand. The prudent Parisian shop- 
keepers fastened their shutters and barred their doors. 
Nerves were at such stretch that while Manon was at 
mass some children, frightened at the pillage of a 
baker's shop, ran into the church and almost caused 
a panic. 

These sights "awoke new feelings and gave rise to 
a thousand reflections" in Manon; she remembered 
that Sully had said that even with intelligence and 
good-will it is yet very difficult to do good. "I be- 
lieve it, I excuse, and I pity," she added. In her next 
letter she returned to the subject; she has only praise 
for the young King, and surprise that the people should 
revolt against the dearth that was borne so quietly 
under his predecessor. (Many surprises of this kind 
awaited Manon.) She added some reflections that 
Madame Roland might have remembered later with 
profit: "Everything is interdependent in a political 
system. Much reflection, knowledge, and experiment 
are necessary to change a single wheel the movement 
of which may afi^ect the whole machine, and either pre- 
serve or destroy it. . . . But the people do not un- 
derstand that; they do not see that the sovereign 
obliged to respect property has many precautions to 



278 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

take in all that concerns it even indirectly. The peo- 
ple feels that it is hungry, and knows that it has not 
the money to satisfy its hunger. It speaks only of 
bread; it was the only thing that interested it; it was 
always thus in all times and all places. The Jews 
wished to make Jesus Christ their king only after he 
had fed them miraculously." As for the disturbances 
in the provinces, they had been grossly exaggerated, 
and were due, every one said, to agitation rather than 
actual scarcity. Here Manon passed into a descrip- 
tion of the pretty custom of crowning a rosiere at 
Salencey, and dropped into poetry to console Sophie 
for her spoiled garden, ravaged by a hail-storm. 

The same cool reasonableness characterized her 
views of the American war. Her republican sympa- 
thies were, of course, with the insurgents, but they 
were expressed moderately, and without the warmth 
which she showed often in the discussion of abstract 
questions. To Voltaire's triumph in Paris she gave a 
few rather depreciatory lines in her letters; evidently 
he stood for little to the devotee of Rousseau. She 
admired Voltaire's poetry, his wit, and his taste, but 
she had a small opinion of his political views and his 
philosophy. She thought "he would have done bet- 
ter peacefully to enjoy his renown in his chateau of 
Ferney, surrounded by his adoring subjects, than to 
come to Paris to exhibit the absurdities of an old man 
greedy for incense." This is all that our young philos- 
opher had to say of the sage "who had broken the 
fetters of reason and avenged the cause of humanity" 
(Condorcet), or of the honors that a grateful country 
laid at his feet, such honors as never before had poet 



RUMBLINGS BEFORE THE STORM 279 

received, even when Petrarch was crowned at the 
Capitol. 

The admiration that Manon could not feel for Vol- 
taire she bestowed freely on the somewhat theatrical 
simplicity of Joseph II, who visited Paris incognito 
as the Count of Falkenstein. Her sketch of him, 
blond, handsome, "very like the Queen," in his round 
wig and puce-colored coat, with austere steel buttons, 
running about Paris alone, on foot or in a hackney- 
coach, visiting the sights like any traveller, is very 
engaging. 

Turgot's dismissal and the royal abandonment of 
reforms and economies that it implied stunned her, as 
it did thinking France (May 12, 1776). "This Sunday 
is a day of revolution," the girl wrote Sophie, not 
knowing how truly, for with the fall of Turgor perished 
the hope of a peaceful and equable adjustment of the 
burdens of the people. On the whole, Manon's inter- 
est in national affairs was feeble compared to her 
ardor for study and acquisition. Her self-absorption 
accounted for something of this indifference and the 
narrow interests of her relations for more. Her culti- 
vated friends were conservative and disillusioned men 
of the world, with small faith in Utopias. The girl 
probably considered that she possessed no store of 
data from which to form sound political opinions, 
hence suspension of judgment became an intellectual 
duty. 

Later collaboration with Roland, by acquainting 
her with the economic situation of France, aroused 
Manon's interest in politics. If she loyally adopted 
her husband's point of view, it was because its sound- 



28o MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

ness appealed to her reason, and she tried to hold the 
balance in which opinions are weighed with a steady 
hand. Her experience in place-seeking left her with 
little faith in any real amelioration under existing con- 
ditions, and a disbelief in, even a fear of, sudden 
changes, lest they lead to new and worse abuses. She 
was uninterested in what she rather contemptuously 
termed "/(2 politique gazetiiere." She had seen the 
failure of so many hopes, the breaking of so many 
promises. What did it matter a quelle sauce on serait 
mange, since the people were always devoured .? Min- 
isters changed, but taxes and imposts, gabelle, corvee, 
and dixieme changed not. 

The evils of the administration were sadly familiar 
to the inspector and his coworker, who (to mention 
one of many instances) drew up the report on the 
ruin of Lyons in 1791, tracing the decay of her former 
prosperity to the crushing exactions and forced loans 
that had filled her once busy streets with beggared 
operatives, and practically reduced this formerly 
flourishing town to bankruptcy. Small wonder that, 
with such examples before her, Manon was sceptical 
of "the good that is always going to be done." 

Daily contact with the peasants of the Lyonnais 
added to Manon's knowledge of, and dissatisfaction 
with, the government. She pitied, she could not 
hope. She had sighed over the wretchedness of the 
artisans, she wept over the misery of the country folk. 
She did what she could to alleviate them, and then 
tried to banish from her mind the woes she could not 
relieve. Are we not even now turning away our eyes 
and thoughts from wrongs that we are impotent to 







LMROLANO DSLK PLATi£R£ 

,_ !T£ r,-L LA SLW"/L A lA CONV/F 
^ ■: .'iL Lfc F RANL rlf ■ ' '.; 1 t N ! ; - ^ 

'i-vJA LA MORT VEM'^!! g? 



PORTRAIT OF ROLAXD 
Drawn by Gabriel in 1 792 



RUMBLINGS BEFORE THE STORM 281 

redress, helplessly stopping our cars against the plaint 
of obscure sufferers ? 

That the failure of her own efforts to obtain ade- 
quate reward and recognition of Roland's services 
counted for something in her indifference and hopeless- 
ness is indubitable; that it counted for much no one 
who is familiar with Manon's correspondence can be- 
lieve. Her own grievance was so insignificant that it 
was forgotten in her complaints of the cruelties and 
blunders of the industrial regime and the barbarities 
of the feudal system. The Rolands' exasperation was 
too justly founded on a basis of wide knowledge to be 
ascribed to mere personal dissatisfaction. The indi- 
vidual injustice was minimized by acquaintance with 
the larger wrong. From this state of half-bitter, half- 
sorrowful resignation she was suddenly aroused. She 
herself told of her awakening in one forceful line: '^ La 
Revolution vint et nous ejifiamma." 

During the peaceful years that Manon had been 
gathering the fruits of her little farm Calonne had 
brought France to the verge of bankruptcy. His origi- 
nal method of dealing with his own financial difficul- 
ties — "To be or to become rich, it is only necessary to 
appear so" — he had applied to those of the state, with 
the result that in 1787 the deficit had grown to a hun- 
dred and forty millions of livres. No longer able to 
hide the emptiness of the Treasury, or to impose more 
forced loans on a sceptical public, he audaciously ad- 
vocated the measure that had caused the dismissal of 
his predecessors. This was a subvention territorialey 
which placed all the property in France on equal 
terms under the tax-gatherer. 



282 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

Beaumarchais had called Calonne a dancer. He 
had, indeed, danced lightly to the verge of disaster, 
and on the brink had saved himself by an astounding 
pirouette. It was the monarchy only that went down 
into the gulf. 

"But what you are giving me is Necker's; this is 
pure Neckerism," protested Louis XVI, when Calonne 
submitted his plans for taxation. "Sire," returned the 
nimble minister, "in the present condition of things 
we can offer you nothing better." Calonne, not satis- 
fied with appropriating Necker's policy, dared to 
ascribe to him the deficit caused by his own extrava- 
gance. Fearing that the Parlement would oppose not 
only the new land-tax but the other innovations in 
the Necker-Calonne programme, the comptroller pro- 
posed to the King that an assembly of Notables should 
be convoked. An assembly of Notables ! The novelty, 
like most novelties, was an antiquity revived; it had 
been a hundred and seventy-five years since the last 
one had met (1614), and the renewal of an old institu- 
tion lent an air of authority to the new measure. To 
this assembly the King himself would communicate his 
plan "for the relief of his people, the settlement of the 
finances, and the reformation of several abuses." 

The court of Versailles, and especially the Queen's 
court of Trianon, received this news with unconcealed 
alarm. Since the last forced loan the former profuse 
golden shower had become a mere dribble, and the 
favorites were languishing. Dire rumors of pensions 
reduced and projected economies were then only the 
forerunners of the real calamity, a universal land-tax. 
Even the fact that the Notables would all be nobles, 



RUMBLINGS BEFORE THE STORM 283 

presided over by princes of the blood, was not wholly 
reassuring. To the older and wiser courtiers this in- 
stitution of a new assembly was clear proof of the 
decline of the royal authority, **The King has just 
sent in his resignation," said the Vicomte de Segur 
when the news reached him. But the Paris wits who 
had little faith in the reform of abuses conducted by 
those who lived by them, expressed their scepticism in 
the following announcement: "Notice is hereby given 
that the Comptroller-General has formed a new Com- 
pany of Actors, whose first performance will take place 
before the court on Monday, the 29th inst [of Janu- 
ary]. The principal piece will be Les Fausses Con- 
fidences; to be followed by Le Consentiment Force; 
after which an allegorical ballet-pantomime, composed 
by M. de Calonne, entitled Le Tonneau des Da- 
naides, will be given." 

The well-named Comedie des Notables ended (May 
25, 1787) with a refusal to pass the territorial sub- 
sidy, the nobles very naturally declining to aban- 
don not only their right to be exempted from taxation 
but their right to tax others. The comedy proved a 
tragedy for Calonne, who was obliged to confess to 
the annual revenue deficit of one hundred and forty 
millions. He had accused Necker of cooking accounts 
in his report and of leaving the Treasury empty. 
Necker was justified, Calonne harshly dismissed, and 
exiled to Lorraine. 

Calonne's successor (May l, 1787), Lomenie de 
Brienne, the Queen's man, was forced by the increasing 
deficit to propose not only a land-tax but a stamp-tax 
as well, to be levied from all classes. But this measure 



284 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

could not be passed without the sanction of the Parle- 
ment of Paris, which refused to register the edicts, and 
continued to refuse in face of the King's displeasure. 
It remained contumacious in spite of royal commands 
(August 6, 1787), of exile from Paris to Troyes, and 
the arrest and imprisonment of its leaders (May 6, 
1788), earning great popularity as defender of the 
people's rights. The Parlement of Paris was backed 
by the magistracy of France, "become liberal from 
interest and rendered generous by oppression" (Mi- 
gnet). 

Meanwhile, what was to be done to fill the royal 
coffers ? Thrifty Lomenie, hard pushed, had proposed 
economies, especially in the Queen's household, far 
more costly than that of the King. Amid angry 
squawks and plaintive bleatings the expenses of the 
court of Trianon were slightly reduced, with the result 
of turning the Queen's spoiled pets into a snarling pack 
of enemies. The gulf of deficit still yawned and cur- 
rent expenses had to be met. To fill his empty trea- 
sury Archbishop Lomenie, after a vain appeal to the 
clergy to remit its privilege, robbed the tills of the 
hospitals, and laid violent hands on the fund for 
the starving peasants. The chasm still gaped, and 
Lomenie was no Curtius Necker to close it by casting 
in himself and his millions. Money must be raised, 
but how .? Only the States-General, an assembly rep- 
resenting the whole nation, could legally pass fiscal 
edicts, the Parlement of Paris affirmed, and the pro- 
vincial parlements confirmed its decision. The issue 
soon became national. 

The Queen, snubbed and scolded by her Polignacs 



RUMBLINGS BEFORE THE STORM 285 

and Besenvals, turned to her sporting brother-in-law 
Artois and his reckless military coterie. In Marie 
Antoinette and the prince Lomenie found two sym- 
pathetic collaborators in his scheme for at once starving 
out the recalcitrant Parlement and annulling its author- 
ity. The establishment of minor law-courts (baillia- 
ges) to try the less important cases at smaller cost 
would reduce the revenues of the Parlement, and the 
formation of a Plenary Court, composed of twenty-one 
nobles to register Lomenie's decrees, would abrogate 
its authority. This Cour Pleniere was admirably cal- 
culated to destroy what remained of the prestige of 
the monarchy. Chosen largely from the valetry of 
Versailles, who were all to be appointed for life, it 
was uniquely designed as a tool, one might say 
a burglar's tool, for forcing the strong boxes of the 
King's subjects. This purpose was expressed in a 
proclamation worthy of its sagacious authors {"le con- 
sell des fous,'' as Michelet called them). Nothing 
affords plainer proof of the gulf between enlightened 
France and benighted Versailles than this mare's nest 
of a scheme worthy of a decadent Byzantine court. 
The details of this childish plan for raising money and 
at the same time staving off the redoubtable States 
General were to be arranged in secret, so that the 
illegal fiscal edicts might be passed instantly by a 
coup de main, taking the hostile public and the rebel- 
lious Parlement by surprise. 

But, as usual, domestic treason quashed the palace 
plot. From a window in the attics of Versailles, where 
the printers, closely watched, were setting up the 
summons to the Cour Pleniere, a clay ball was tossed 



286 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

containing a printed proof. No bursting shell was 
ever so far-reaching in its fatal effect as the breaking 
of this missile. The news of the conspiracy spread 
from an outraged capital to an indignant country. 
Not an edict could be registered. The Grands Bail- 
liages sat at receipt of custom in empty court-rooms. 
Local riots and the organized opposition of Dauphine 
and Brittany warned the King that the rusty thunder- 
bolt of Louis XIV was dangerous only to the hand 
that launched it. 

The Cour Pleniere met once only under protest and 
then dissolved, a pitiful " heroi-tragi-comedie, jouee le 
14 Juillet 1788 -par une societe d' amateurs dans un 
Chateau aux environs de Versailles.'" 

Naturally, after this flat failure Lomenie's succeeding 
loan remained unfilled, and the tax of the second twen- 
tieth which Parlement had registered unlevied. " Lenders 
are afraid of ruin, tax-gatherers of hanging," wailed 
Weber. What resource remained for poverty-stricken 
royalty ? States General only, Lomenie assured the 
King, and finally, on August 8, 1788, the National 
States General were formally summoned for the fol- 
lowing May, 1789, and "thinkers" were invited to 
propose a plan of procedure for their dehberations. 
Absolutism had lost its first battle. Even the Queen, 
prejudiced and limited as she was, still confused with 
the failure of her little harem plot, felt defeat in the 
air. Instinct warned this daughter of emperors that 
absolute monarchy was becoming constitutional mon- 
archy. "The King grants States General. It is the 
first drum-beat of ill omen for France," she murmured 
to Madame Campan, growing prophetic over her coffee. 



RUMBLINGS BEFORE THE STORM 287 

"Thinkers" having failed to provide a satisfactory 
order of proceedings, a second Assembly of Notables 
was convened (November 6, 1788) to settle two mo- 
mentous questions: Shall the Third Estate have a 
double representation in the States General, six hun- 
dred representatives, as many as the nobility and 
clergy united ? Shall the members of the States 
General vote individually or by class ? Together or 
separately ? The Notables (they were Calonne's origi- 
nal Notables, and all belonged to the privileged orders) 
opposed the double representation, and dodged the 
issue by count of heads. 

After a month of backing and filHng, nothing had 
been decided. Public indignation finding voice in 
pamphlets and caricatures, addresses and ballads, 
finally reached the King's ears, drowning the hammer- 
ing and pounding in his forge, and Louis XVI advo- 
cated the double representation by the advice of Necker, 
who had been recalled in August after the fall of 
Lomenie. Two grim advocates, hunger and death, 
pleaded more insistently for the people. To those 
who living on boiled grass and roots "asked for bread, 
Louis gave the Double Representation" (Michelet). 
Voting by head or class, and all minor matters re- 
mained undecided — not for lack of discussion, how- 
ever. "All men's minds are in a ferment. Nothing 
is talked of but a constitution; the women especially 
are joining in the hubbub, and you know, as well as 
I, what influence they have in this country. It is a 
mania; everybody is an administrator, and can talk 
only of progress. The lackeys in the anterooms are 
busy reading the pamphlets that come out ten or 



288 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

twelve a day, and I don't know how the printing-presses 
can do the work," wrote Count Fersen, the Queen's 
knight. 

Finally, by royal edict, on January 24, 1789, the 
States General became an assured fact; the election 
of the national representatives and the preparation of 
the famous cahiers began. The cahiers de plaintes et 
doleances were memorials of complaints and grievances 
in which the whole people of France stated their 
wrongs, their sufferings, and their wishes, the reforms 
they desired and the compromises they were willing 
to accept. These documents have been made the sub- 
ject of recent and exhaustive investigation, and their 
value to the historian of economics can hardly be over- 
estimated. De Tocqueville called them the last will 
and testament of the old regime. They are certainly 
its foremost accuser. Is their stern arraignment just .? 
Are they really the work of the people, or of politicians 
interested in exaggerating abuses and in presenting a 
strong case against the government ? The vexed ques- 
tion of their authorship may now be considered defi- 
nitely settled, and there is no doubt that most of the 
rural parish cahiers were written by the peasants 
themselves. "At the sight of their naive inaccuracies, 
their clumsiness, and their picturesque spelling, it is 
hardly possible to believe that they are not, for the 
most part, the real work of popular assemblies," says 
M. Boissonade, one of the editors of the cahierSy and 
two other authorities. Messieurs Bridrey and Poree, 
share his conviction. The cahiers certainly are much 
alike, but they express the desires of the people, and 
**the same abuses, the same evils, necessarily provoked 



RUMBLINGS BEFORE THE STORM 289 

the same complaints." The magistrates, parish priests, 
and lawyers, who were sometimes the secretaries and 
amanuenses of unlettered folk, did little but ** trans- 
cribe with more or less elegance, but certainly always 
with fidelity, the feelings and the wishes of the people." 
In these memorials the voice of the peasant, mute 
through so many centuries of wrong, was heard at last. 
What Roland was to do later in person for Lyons, curesy 
local lawyers, and the "intellectuals," as M. Onou calls 
them, were doing for laborers and rustics. So much 
for the authorship of the cahiers. 

How reliable are they in matters of fact ? The pre- 
vailing opinion in France to-day is that of the editors 
of the cahiers (who naturally are more familiar with 
the text than any of those who have previously written 
on the subject), viz.: that the parish cahiers are gen- 
erally trustworthy. Their veracity is tested by com- 
parison with statements drawn from the municipal 
registers and data from other uncontested sources. 
Their titles to authenticity and veracity justified by 
investigation and comparison with contemporary doc- 
uments, they furnish the substance for a new view of 
history, a new knowledge of the common people, and 
a new instrument for calculating the effect of economic 
conditions on the thoughts and acts of men. 

Dull rumblings and slight shocks from this upheaval 
had, of course, reached the Rolands. They had per- 
sonal, direct news, also, for Bosc and Lanthenas were 
ardent supporters of the projected reforms, and the 
Rolands' Protestant friends were won at once. No 
one had better cause to dislike and distrust the old 
regime than Roland and his wife, but for some time 



290 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

Manon remained strangely lukewarm. M. Perroud be- 
lieves that she was convinced that the old order would 
endure in spite of the revolt against it, and strove to 
accommodate herself to it. Roland, though at times 
he hoped for some return to the policy of Turgot and 
Trudaine, believed that officials, not methods, would 
be changed. For a short time Madame Roland felt 
something of her old enthusiasm for the Parlement 
during its resistance to the King and its demand for 
the States General. (Letters of May 19 and 22, 1788.) 
In June she wrote Bosc: "They say that the answer of 
Necker [to Calonne] is all ready, but to publish it he 
must leave the kingdom. What do your friends say 
of him .? . . . All the little courts [the bailiwicks in- 
stituted by Brienne] are satisfied with the revolution. 
It is only we plebeians who find their hands in our 
pockets before any one can say 'Beware !' who are not 
pleased with the news of the registration [of Lomenie's 
edicts], and of a Plenary Court sold to the King. Then 
the authority of the lesser courts seems to us too great. 
In little places where gossip and personal feeling have 
so much influence the fortune of private individuals is 
placed at the discretion of judges who are easily de- 
ceived. Let us wait and see, let us bless America, and 
weep on the banks of the rivers of Babylon." 

Necker's return to power (August 25, 1788) gave 
Madame Roland some anxiety. She had always dis- 
trusted him, and feared his ill will for Roland if the 
latter's fearless "Notes" should come to Necker's 
knowledge. 

Her belief, like that of the general public, in the 
liberalism of the Parlement was shaken by its demand 



RUMBLINGS BEFORE THE STORM 291 

that the Orders in the States General should vote 
separately. She wrote Bosc on October 8 from the 
Clos: "You tell us nothing more, my dear, and yet the 
Parlement is re-estabhshed, and is acting in a sur- 
prising manner. Must the friends of order and lib- 
erty who desired its re-establishment be obliged to 
regret it? What has been the effect of its opinion at 
the capital ? We are, then, only to know whether we 
shall vegetate sadly under the rod of a single despot, 
or groan under the iron yoke of several tyrants. The 
alternative is terrible, and leaves us no choice; it is 
impossible to make one between two evils. If the 
degradation of the nation is less universal under an 
aristocracy than under the despotism of an absolute 
monarch, the condition of the people is sometimes 
more wretched, and it would be with us, where the 
privileged classes are everything, and the largest class 
is almost a zero." 

In the midst of rather melancholy references to her 
own country Madame Roland's fancy again and again 
gladly turned to America, the asylum of liberty, the 
incontrovertible proof of the practical beneficence of 
republican institutions. The Arcadian hfe of the 
farmers of Rhode Island and the settlers of Pennsyl- 
vania had been winningly pictured by the Frenchmen 
who had tasted its noble hospitality. Courtiers, sol- 
diers, writers, farmers, philosophers, theorists, every 
manner of man from Lauzun to Brissot, joined in a 
hymn of praise to America, to its bounteous soil, its 
large opportunity, its free natural life, as unfettered by 
petty social restrictions as by caste prejudices or crip- 
pling laws. 



292 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

Saint John de Crevecceur, whose Lettres d'un culti- 
vateur americain appealed poignantly to the harassed 
French landowner, had found an unspoiled Eden in 
the forests and fields of these new Hesperides. To the 
French idealists there was but one shadow, slavery, 
across this sunny paradise, and a Society for the En- 
franchisement of the Negroes was promptly founded by 
Brissot, the future Girondin, on his return to France. 

Lanthenas, the man of many projects, was urging his 
friends to realize their dream of liberty in America 
with him, in those agitated months that preceded the 
meeting of the States General. Madame Roland's 
references to the Promised Land glide in between her 
requests for political news and for technical advice 
about her cabbages and turnips and their insect ene- 
mies. And the genial plenty of America seemed doubly 
alluring by contrast with the dearth of the lean year 
1788, when long drought and devastating hailstones 
had blighted the harvests. Discontent was exacer- 
bated by the scarcity of food. In the provinces nobles 
and plebeians were discussing the double representa- 
tion at the sword's point. There was civil war in the 
north, revolt in the south. While the enlightened por- 
tion of the Third Estate showed moderation as well as 
tenacity in defense of its promised rights, the mass of 
the people whose ignorance separated it from the mid- 
dle class already had begun to express its beliefs in 
acts of violence. In Paris, only a few days before the 
opening of the States General (April, 1789), Sieur 
Revillon's paper factory was sacked and burned by 
rioters. The sieur was accused of "aristocracy," and 
of having said that a workman could live on fifteen 



RUMBLINGS BEFORE THE STORM 293 

sous a day. The Gardes Fran9aises and the Suisses 
arrived too late to save the factory, but in dispersing 
the pillagers many were wounded and killed. This 
was an ominous prelude to the States General, for the 
authorities had proved weak and undecided, the people 
violent and unreasonable. 

Nor was the foreign policy of the government strong 
or wise. By hesitation and compromise the prestige 
won by the American victories had been lost. France 
had stood aloof from her ally, Turkey, had let Russia 
take the Crimea, and her mediation had been refused 
by the Empress. Holland had been deserted, also, 
where the States had counted on the protection of 
France, that had stood by passively and allowed the 
Prince of Orange, aided by Prussia and England, to 
become an absolute monarch, and to treat Holland 
like a conquered country. For Lomenie had no money 
for troops to sustain the honor of his country and the 
liberty of her ally. All these humiliations doubtless 
lay heavy on Madame Roland's heart, but they do 
not explain why the assembling of the long-hoped-for 
States General left her still cold and incredulous. 

My own opinion is that Madame Roland distrusted 
this first revolution because it was the work of the 
nobles. It was an aristocratic movement, and in 
reforms by those who had most need of reformation 
she had no faith. Even with the double representa- 
tion of the Third Estate, she was still mistrustful of 
the good faith of the King and the privileged classes. 
This distrust, curiously enough, has been made a 
reproach to her, as though it were not justified by 
every act of the monarch and the aristocrats that fol- 



294 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

lowed the opening of the States General. What all 
France suspected only after repeated proofs of unfair 
dealing Madame Roland foresaw. By divination or 
woman's intuition .? No, by the application of gen- 
eral principles, by her knowledge of character, her 
study of the past, her bourgeois good sense. Enthu- 
siast as she was by temperament, reason and experi- 
ence proved to her that those by whom offenses come 
cannot extirpate those offenses. The pressure for 
reform of high-seated abuses must come from below. 
Until the voice of the people was heard Manon stopped 
her ears against all the privileged contemners of privi- 
lege, even against the fiery appeal of Mirabeau: "Peo- 
ples, the hour of awakening has sounded. Liberty is 
knocking at the door; go to meet her." But who was 
Mirabeau ? The worst type of irresponsible aristocrat. 
A noble, a rake, a venal, unscrupulous pamphleteer, 
untruthful, dishonest, loose-living — a typical child as 
well as a victim of the feudal system; a mercenary 
condottiere, hiring out his pen instead of the sword of 
his Italian ancestors. For the moment he was with 
the people, but in time of stress would he not turn 
again to his king or his order t Events justified 
Manon's distrust. 

Was her pen idle through those two momentous 
months of May and June, during the great trial of 
strength in the States General ? Roland's severe ill- 
ness bound her to his bedside all through June, but in 
May she had been free to write, and many of her let- 
ters of that time must have perished, for not one has 
been found. How much had happened to incite her 
to question her friends in Paris ! With ever-growing 



RUMBLINGS BEFORE THE STORM 295 

interest she must have read of the solemn opening of 
the States General at Versailles on the 5th of May, 
the retirement of the privileged classes, the nobility 
and clergy, to verify their credentials apart on May 
6; the refusal of the Third Estate to proceed to such 
verification alone; its resolution not to consider itself 
constituted, or to begin its labors before junction with 
the other orders, and its decision that its sittings 
should be pubhc and its debates reported by the 
press. 

In June, in her husband's sick-room, Manon must 
have followed through the newspapers "the greatest 
constitutional struggle that has ever been fought out 
in the world by speech alone." History was quickly 
made in those longest days of the year. On June 10 
the trenchant Sieyes struck at the root the longest line 
of kings in Europe. On June 12 the last summons of 
the Third Estate to the nobles and clergy was sent, 
and ignored, and on the following day that body began 
the verification of its powers alone. On June 17, 
sanctioned by public opinion, the Third Order named 
itself "The National Assembly"; '^ UEtat cest nous'" 
announced these black-robed deputies, who, purposely 
humiHated by being obliged to wear a kind of sombre 
livery, found themselves "appropriately dressed to 
conduct the funeral of royalty" (Gaulot). Hardly had 
the lower clergy ("mere Commons in Curates' frocks") 
joined the Third Estate, when they all found them- 
selves shut out from their meeting-place like disgraced 
schoolboys, and forced to take refuge in the bare 
tennis-court of Versailles (June 20). The solemn 
covenant there, the oath not to separate until a new 



296 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

constitution had been made, and the rights of the 
people assured, surely fired Manon's heart. 

Her suspicions, however, were soon justified. A 
futile Seance Royale (June 23) followed the Oath. 
The King's belated concessions in those Thirty-five 
Articles, which granted three months before would 
have been received with affectionate gratitude, roused 
no enthusiasm; his arbitrary command to the Three 
Orders to vote separately, for if they did not, '' seul je 
ferai le bien de mon peuplej" proved mere brutum Jul- 
men. Mirabeau became the true Thunderer, and his 
bolt seared not only poor messenger De Breze but 
royalty as well. 

The worsted King, after many of the nobles and the 
majority of the prelates had gone over to the Assem- 
bly, now national, indeed, revoked his former speech, 
and besought rather than commanded nobles and 
clergy to join the Third Estate (June 27), apparently 
acknowledging its authority. Apparently only, and to 
gain time, for in the last days of June and the first 
weeks of July there were ominous assemblings of for- 
eign regiments and strange soldiers — Swiss, Alsatians, 
Walloons — ^seen in Paris suburbs. Ten regiments were 
summoned to overawe the capital, for the city had 
promised to sustain the Assembly, and the troops at 
hand would not move against the national representa- 
tives. Artois assured one of his friends that the King's 
submission to the popular will would last only until his 
forces were concentrated, and added that "many 
heads must fall." 

It has been lightly asserted and ineptly repeated 
that the monarchy was destroyed through its clem- 



RUMBLINGS BEFORE THE STORM 297 

ency. On the contrary, the King and the court essayed 
force again and again, and perished because the army 
would not attack the people. The King, when asked 
by Mirabeau to dismiss the troops and quiet suspicion, 
decHned to do so, and proposed instead to despatch the 
Assembly to Soissons or Noyon. The deputies, nat- 
urally enough, did not accept the offer to send them 
away from Paris, and "to place them between two 
camps" (Thiers). Vague fears of a coup d'etat hard- 
ened into certainty when it was known that Necker 
had been secretly dismissed, and hurried away on the 
preceding day. For Necker had suspected that the in- 
tention of the court was to unite at Compiegne all the 
members of the Three Orders who had not favored the 
innovations; to make them consent in haste to all the 
taxes and loans that it (the court) needed, and then to 
dismiss them (Madame de Stael). 



CHAPTER XIV 

"LA REVOLUTION VINT ET NOUS 
ENFLAMMA" 

How the Parisian democracy saved the Assembly 
and the people, the stirring story of the 14th and 15th 
of July, has been told by tongues of flame and written 
in letters of gold; even to-day it hurries heart-beats. 
All the world knows of the acts that moved the world. 
It is easy to fancy in what a fever of excitement Manon, 
still tremulous from Roland's recent peril, received the 
amazing tidings; every courier brought a new won- 
der, for events gained hourly on his foaming horses. 
The news of the rising of the people, the fall of the 
Bastille, the retreat of the foreign troops, was hardly 
read when fresh wonders pressed hard on its flank. 
"Paris conquers her king. Philosopher Bailly is ap- 
pointed mayor, Republican Lafayette invents the tri- 
color that will go round the globe" (July 15), and the 
Assembly elects a commission of eight to draw up a 
constitution on the English model. Absolutism crum- 
bles in a day with its stronghold. If after more than 
a century the mere record of the swift march of these 
amazing events finds an echoing beat in the reader's 
blood, how must it then have fired the hearts of 
Frenchmen ! 

Did Manon believe that the dreams of her youth 
were growing into radiant realities, that the Saturnian 
reign had begun, as she thrilled over the taking of the 

298 



"LA REVOLUTION VINT" 299 

Bastille or the tranquil courage of the Assembly, 
quietly planning a constitution under the guns of 
foreign mercenaries ? With these high deeds in mind, 
it is bewildering to read her first letter after the peo- 
ple's victory. 

July 26. 
"No, you are not free; no one is so yet. The confi- 
dence of the public is betrayed, letters are intercepted. 
You complain of my silence; I write you by every mail; 
it is true that I no longer chat with you about my 
own business; who is the traitor that to-day has any 
other than that of the nation .? It is true that I have 
advised stronger measures than have been adopted, 
and meantime, if you are not vigilant, yours will only 
have been a raising aloft of shields. Neither have I 
received the letter from you that our friend Lanthenas 
tells me of. You send me no news, and there should 
be masses of it. You are busying yourself with mu- 
nicipal affairs, and you are letting go free heads that 
are plotting new horrors. You are no more than chil- 
dren; your enthusiasm is a fire of straw, and if the 
National Assembly does not formally institute pro- 
ceedings against two illustrious heads, or some gen- 
erous Decius does not strike at them, you are all 
damned. If this letter does not reach you, may the 
cowards who read it blush on learning that it is from 
a woman, and tremble while reflecting that she can 
make a hundred enthusiasts who will inspire a million 
more." 

Truly Manon had awakened, and like a soldier 
roused by sudden alarm, had awakened seizing a sword. 



300 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

This was strange language for a polished woman, 
strange aggressiveness for a reasonable woman, strange 
violence for a kindly woman. This letter, the deadli- 
est document of Madame Roland's detractors, reads 
like a hysterical outbreak; as though Roland's long ill- 
ness, with its jading alternation of hope and despair, 
and the tense excitement of the last two months, had 
exasperated her nerves and deflected her vision. 

Documents, however, can lie as well as figures, 
when isolated and cut out from their place in the 
sequence of events that they illustrate or recount. 
The date of a paper is as important as its contents. 
There was cause, grim cause, for Madame Roland's 
protests and appeals. On the 26th of July the Satur- 
nian reign was already over. If on the 15th of July 
Louis XVI had accepted the Revolution, on the next 
day his brothers had emigrated, and the desertion of 
their King and their country by the nobles began by 
the flight of the Polignacs. The foreign regiments 
were not remanded; they remained a menace to liberty. 
Even the moderates among the revolutionists, who 
feared another court plot, petitioned for the punish- 
ment of the authors of the attempted coup d'etat. Re- 
spectable bourgeois not far from Lyons were writing 
the King "to make a terrible example of those who 
had deceived him," i. e., the Queen and the princes, 
his brothers. Just suspicion soon quickened into 
panic. Chateaux were burned, troops of brigands ap- 
peared in the country, dreadful rumors were rife of 
plots at court, of ships bringing corn to hungry France 
attacked by English pirates hired by the Queen and 
Artois. The long reign of La Grande Peur had already 



"LA REVOLUTION VINT" 301 

begun. The belief that the court was cozening the 
people, which facts had proved well founded, was 
spreading over the country, and with it a contempt 
for the authority that was at oQce unworthy of respect 
and impotent to enforce its will. 

The men who had played the new game of politics 
honestly, who had prepared their cahiers in a reason- 
able, conciliatory spirit, who had believed in the good 
faith of the King, who had hoped and trusted, who had 
counted on a reform of crying abuses, found that after 
all the fair words and large promises they were assem- 
bled for the sole purpose of squeezing money from 
the people. The tone of angry suspicion in Madame 
Roland's letter was universal in an indignant France. 

Angry and suspicious as Manon was, fear had no 
part in her, and on July 29 she left Lyons to guard 
Le Clos, which she deemed in danger from the brigands, 
whence she wrote reassuringly to Brissot, who pub- 
lished her letter in his paper, Le Patriote fran^ais. 
*'Three or four little lords had intrenched themselves 
in their chateaux with cannon, guns, and ammunition, 
seconded by certain brigands who had escaped from 
Lyons. A dozen of them were arrested at Villefranche. 
Thereupon one of the 'little lords' had come with ten 
mounted followers, sabre in hand, to ask for the release 
of their comrades. They had been met by the people 
and had disappeared in a hurry." 

All through the agitated summer of 1789 Roland, 
barely convalescent, and his wife, while working on the 
third volume of the Dictionnaire, begged for news of 
the Assembly, and followed its proceedings with criti- 
cal, sometimes hostile, interest. Their suspicions of the 



302 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

Court's double-dealing did not abate. Manon had 
sneered at the enthusiasm of the deputies when the 
King and the Queen, with the dauphin in her arms, 
had visited it on July 15. "I am convinced that half 
the Assembly was foolish enough to be touched at the 
sight of Antoinette recommending her son to them. 
Morbleu ! It may well be a question of a child. It is 
one of the welfare of twenty millions of men. All is 
lost if we are not on our guard." From the mother of 
Eudora this sounds harsh; from the patriot it is a just 
observation. 

Like Charlotte Corday, Manon had been "a repub- 
lican long before the Revolution." She had stood 
aloof, hoping little from a movement led by nobles. 
In the cannon of the besiegers of the Bastille she 
heard at last the vox popuH. Her surrender was as 
complete as her resistance had been prolonged. Her 
capitulation was unconditional. "La Revolution vinty'* 
and conquered. Madame Roland had not sought it; 
she was not one of the many brilliant, intellectual 
people who, without work, position, or means, sought 
in the new movement a moyen de parvenify a means 
of getting what they lacked, of carving out a career 
or a fortune from the great upheaval. No, Madame 
Roland gave herself to what she beheved to be the 
cause of liberty and of justice. To it she conse- 
crated her life and the lives of those dearest to her. 
From her childhood she had sought an ideal worthy of 
the complete immolation of self. The dominant mo- 
tive of her life had been devotion. As a child she had 
longed to dedicate herself to God. Her girlhood was 
consecrated to the cult of friendship; as a maiden she 




STATUE OF MADAME ROLAND 

From the study for the statue of Madame Roland which is now in a 

niche on the southern side of the exterior of the 

Hotel de V'ille in Paris 



"LA REVOLUTION VINT" 303 

had sacrificed all worldly consideration to an ideal of 
love. The rather dreary drudgery of her married life 
her warmth of heart and imagination had transmuted 
into cheerful occupation. Motherhood had brought an 
even deeper oblivion of herself, and now in this new 
passion of patriotism, this enthralling inner vision of 
a fatherland, beneficent as powerful, all the older loves 
seemed fused in one overmastering passion. To the 
woman who had wept because she was not born a 
Spartan or a Roman, who had looked with longing, 
envious eyes at England and Switzerland, hope had 
come like the angel of the Annunciation. *' Behold thy 
handmaid," Madame Roland had answered to the 
divine summons. 

For the Revolution was a religion, not only to its 
leaders, but to all those, however obscure, who suf- 
fered and fought for it. It inspired the same devotion, 
the same sense of consecration, the same indifference 
to side-issues and minor details, and the same insen- 
sibility to pain, in self and in others. Like all new 
creeds, the Revolution had its fanaticisms and its 
cruelties, its bigots and fanatics, its schisms and here- 
sies, its martyrs and confessors, its inquisitors and 
warrior-saints. These were yet to come in those early 
days of the faith in '89 and '90, days of love-feasts and 
fraternal rejoicings. 

The hope, the sense of personal value that Chris- 
tianity revealed to materialized paganism, the new 
doctrine of the rights of man brought to the French 
people ! What ! These human heads of cattle, good 
only to starve and toil in the fields for their masters, 
or to bleed in battle for a wanton's quarrel or a king's 



304 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

greed, were then to count for something ? They were 
to own something, these serfs who could not draw a 
draft of water nor grind a handful of wheat save 
at their lord's fountain or mill. These mute millions 
were to speak for themselves. They were men, fellow 
men, the new gospel proclaimed. This good news 
sustained them while they starved and suffered, and 
inspired a new sense of human dignity. Far more 
impressive than any political achievement was the 
kindling of hope in cold and faint hearts. Necker, 
after three weeks of exile, hardly recognized the same 
people. Dusauty, who had lived forty years under 
the ancient regime, noted that old France disappeared 
in a few days. "Everything is changed." All the 
young men were armed and drilling; men of eighty 
mounted guard with their great-grandsons. "Who 
would have believed," they said to him, "that we 
should die free.^*" "The Revolution, all imperfect as 
it is," Madame Roland wrote Brissot, "has changed 
the face of France. It has developed in it a character, 
and we had none." 

Michelet has recorded in pages glowing with virile 
tenderness the daily and hourly offerings of the poor 
citizens to the patria. Too little is known of this 
heroism of the humble. The public acts of the Revo- 
lution, sublime or terrible, that followed swiftly have 
overshadowed the countless individual sacrifices that 
marked each day of its beginnings. Hope and faith 
sustained the people in face of a dissembling king, a 
hostile court, blighted harvests, and increasing dis- 
orders. For the first to abuse enlarged freedom was 
rascaldom, of course, and lovers of order had to look 



"LA REVOLUTION VINT" 305 

on helplessly at outbreaks of violence and lawlessness. 
In the two months that followed the storming of the 
Bastille the country people followed the Parisians' 
example, and shattered towers and ruined donjons still 
mark their zeal. It was natural enough that the castle 
where those yellow parchments were hoarded that 
gave the lord mysterious power over the peasant should 
be the first sacrifice to Jacques Bonhomme's new 
liberty. But, though they hated the aristocracy, all 
Frenchmen, even Robespierre and Marat, were royal- 
ists. The nation clung to its old idol, and excused the 
King's tergiversations and bad faith by persuading it- 
self that he was deceived, that he did not know what he 
was signing every day. He, poor man, was in the toils 
of his maleficent Queen. It was only against the robber 
nobles, his immediate oppressors, that the peasant 
armed himself with scythe and torch, not against the 
** good " King. Even the Rolands and their kind ascribed 
the court plots to the Queen and the Princes, and be- 
lieved that "Louis XVI wishes to do right." Many 
acts of treachery, irrefragable proofs of double dealing 
were required to destroy the love and confidence of 
the people. 

As lawlessness increased "it became urgent to fore- 
stall a Jacquerie by a revolution," as Duruy has pithily 
put it. The nobles proposed to sell their proprietary 
and aboUsh their personal rights over the peasantry 
on their estates. On the famous night of August 4, 
1789, nobles and ecclesiastics, provinces and towns, 
renounced their ancient privileges. In a few hours 
feudalism vanished and equality was born. A decla- 
ration of rights very naturally followed the abolition 



3o6 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

of privileges, and on August 26 the Droits de THomme 
appeared, the last act that the Assembly performed in 
harmony. There was little harmony elsewhere dur- 
ing the attempted adjustment of conflicting claims, 
and the sale of privileges and church-lands which fol- 
lowed the renunciations of August 4, and the Ro- 
lands passed an agitated summer. 

News of the death of Canon Bimont, Manon's "dear 
little uncle," who, she had hoped, would some day sit 
at her fireside, reached her in the early autumn. She 
had no time to mourn. Troops had been again assem- 
bled at Versailles. On October i they had been feasted 
and wined by the court to excite them against the 
people, and the arrest and imprisonment of the mem- 
bers of the Assembly was hourly expected. The news 
of the banquet in the Orangerie had just reached 
Madame Roland when she wrote Bosc on October 6. 
This letter, evidently dashed off in great anxiety and 
indignation, affords a curious instance of her political 
sagacity. She advises, as a measure of public safety 
the immediate transference of the King and the Assem- 
bly to Paris at the very time when the hungry Parisian 
housewives, a drabbled and dishevelled escort, were 
bringing the royal family to the capital. "A plan 
must be made to carry off the deputies, and transfer 
them to Paris under the guard of the nation, that they 
may work at the constitution without interruption. 
I say, carry them off, for though it is their part to 
remain like Roman senators of old at their posts, it is 
the duty of the nation to watch over their safety, to 
cover them with its aegis, and to surround them with 
its protection." The letter is filled with other sug- 



"LA REVOLUTION VINT" 307 

gestions, many of which soon afterwards became mea- 
sures, viz.: the aboHtion of octrois and douanes, the 
appointment of special committees to consider ways 
and means of supplying food quickly and economically 
to the large towns, the founding of a public pay-office 
to cut ofF funds from the treacherous court, and the 
establishment of a national guard drawn from all the 
provinces to repress local disorders and incite patriotic 
feeling. 

A P. S. is too characteristic of the nation and the 
period to be omitted. "If the theatres of the capital 
remain open, as is to be assumed, the vigilance of the 
citizens should be extended to them. They should be 
allowed to give only the plays that nourish sentiments 
appropriate to our circumstances; several of the great 
Corneille, but not Cinna; the Brutus of Voltaire, his 
Catiline, his Death of Caesar, etc. Nothing is to be 
neglected in the regeneration of a whole nation. This 
same care should extend over the smaller theatres; 
from them should be withdrawn whatever maintains 
or stimulates luxury, immorality, or slavery." Ma- 
non's exaltation, it will be observed, took a practical 
form. 

Both her enthusiasms and her acquaintance with the 
political situation were sustained and extended by her 
correspondence with two new friends, Brissot de War- 
ville and Bancal des Issarts. 

At the same time her letters treating of national 
affairs and all aglow with patriotic feeling began to 
find their way to a larger public. A young lawyer, 
Luc Antoine de Rosiere Champagneux, who had left 
his native Dauphine and settled in Lyons, published 



3o8 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

many of the Rolands' letters in his paper, Le Courier 
de Lyon. It was with him that on May 30, 1790, 
Madame Roland watched the sixty thousand national 
guards who had come from all the neighboring country 
to celebrate the feast of the Federation, defile along the 
quays of the Rhone. With fire and water in her eyes 
Manon saw them pass, and with them marched an 
ideal made flesh, that fraternity of man vainly preached 
by Pagan stoic and Christian apostle alike. Here, as 
she looked, the miracle came to pass; the narrow hatreds 
of province for province, the fierce hostilities of town 
to town wavered, softened, melted away before a 
mighty inrush of brotherly love, of passion for a com- 
mon patria. Aflame with enthusiasm, Manon wrote 
the story of the great day, and Champagneux pub- 
lished it unsigned, in his newspaper, "We printed 
more than sixty thousand of it," he says; "ezch federe 
wished to carry one home with him." Parisian and 
provincial journals copied the article, long extracts 
appeared in the Patriote fraufais, Camille Desmoulins 
reprinted it in extenso, and it was published as a pam- 
phlet. If, as Michelet says, " e2Lch federe carried away 
with him something of the soul of Madame Roland," 
her impassioned idealism awoke an answering vibra- 
tion in many thousand hearts all over France. She 
herself does not mention this article in her Memoirs, 
and there are only slight references to her journalistic 
work in her letters. 

She considered Champagneux somewhat lacking in 
courage, and though he was honorable Qionnete) he 
was too plausible, too discreet, quite to reach her 
Spartan standard. Her estimate proved to be just. 



"LA REVOLUTION VINT" 309 

during the Terror, though she seemed somewhat exact- 
ing when she wrote of his editorial caution: " Foin de 
ces her OS de chambre qui tremblent dans la premiere rue^ 

The courage of her new friend Brissot was above 
reproach, but no poHtical leader has ever been so 
blackened by persistent malice and envenomed party 
spirit. "It was I who killed him with my book," 
sobbed Camille Desmoulins when Brissot was con- 
demned. Camille was even more guilty than he 
suspected; he had murdered Brissot's good name. 
*^ CalomnieZy calomniez toujours ; il en restera quelque 
chose^^ said Beaumarchais, well quahfied to judge of the 
force of persevering slander, and "Brissot, the coura- 
geous publicist and honorable man" (Perroud), is a 
typical example of its enduring blight. 

The rehabilitation of his memory would be an 
attractive task, but mine is limited to mentioning 
briefly his relations with the Rolands. Already in 1787 
Brissot had cited Roland's Italian Journey, and sev- 
eral of his articles in the Encyclopedie, with approving 
commentary in his Study of the American Revolution. 
Roland, who had not been spoiled by over-praise, 
wrote a word of thanks for the kindly appreciation, 
and an exchange of courtesies followed between the 
two authors. The following year (1788) Brissot went 
to America with Claviere, to treat with Congress for 
the French debt, and on his return to Paris he founded 
a newspaper, Le Patriote fran9ais. The Rolands and 
their friends were among his collaborators. Madame 
Roland, as usual, soon became her husband's substi- 
tute. She says in her Memoirs: "My letters, full of 
enthusiasm, pleased Brissot, who often printed ex- 



3IO MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

tracts from them in his paper, where I found them 
with pleasure. These frequent communications united 
us in friendship." Indeed, they were comrades in arms 
when they met in Paris in 1791. 



CHAPTER XV 

BANCAL DES ISSARTS 

Jean Henri Bancal des Issarts was also a con- 
tributor to Brissot's paper, and a member of Brissot's 
abolitionist club, Les Amis des Noirs, Like Lanthenas 
and Bosc, he was a zealous worker in the secret 
societies that smoothed the path of the Revolution, 
The youngest son of a prosperous merchant of Cler- 
mont Ferrand, Bancal had studied at the University of 
Orleans, and bought a notary's practice in Paris. There 
his new environment, the new atmosphere pollent with 
new ideas, and contact with new friends turned his 
thoughts towards a career in politics or philanthropy. 
In 1788 he sold his office, wrote a Declaration of 
Rights, and made a tour through Auvergne expounding 
and spreading the new gospel. On his return to Paris 
he was named elector for his district of Saint Eustache 
(April 21, 1789). He was a foreground figure in the 
momentous scenes of July, and ultimately became 
Brissot's Heutenant. In November Auvergne named 
him as one of her envoys to the Assembly. He was in 
the vanguard of the innovators, and one of the found- 
ers of the Jacobin Club, when a slight check to his 
political ambitions completely changed his aims. The 
role of peripatetic apostle of the new doctrines sud- 
denly allured him and, abandoning Paris, he set out 
for the south of France. There he was not only to 
sow the good seed, but, combining the labors of the 

311 



312 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

missionary with those of a real-estate agent, he was 
to keep a watchful eye on any especially likely piece 
of ecclesiastical property (then become national) for 
sale. Bancal had enthusiastically entered into Lan- 
thenas's scheme for a community life of kindred minds, 
like that of the Moravian Brothers. Brissot, Bosc, and 
the Rolands, as well as the English Quaker Piggott, 
of repubhcan ideals, were all interested in the project, 
which was somewhat prosaically called the ''Agricul- 
tural Society." The vast domains of the clergy had 
just been put on the market by the decree of the 
Assembly, March 20, and the little group of friends 
hoped to acquire an estate held in common, where 
they might cultivate their fields and their minds, 
divide the work and the profits, and lead the simple 
life, pleasantly flavored with intellectual interests and 
literary pursuits. 

On his way south Bancal was to visit the Rolands, 
whom he had never met, though he and Madame had 
already exchanged letters. She had begun the corre- 
spondence with a cordial though rather studied letter 
(June 22, 1790), introducing herself and her husband 
to Bancal as members of the little coterie in Paris, 
inviting him to Le Clos, and referring to the project, 
then very much to the fore, of the community life. 
Politic as the letter was, its tone was indicative of the 
sentiments that were already shaping the forms of 
polite intercourse. ** Since Frenchmen have gained a 
country, between those who are worthy of this blessing 
there should be a tie that draws them together in spite 
of distance, and unites them in the same cause. A 
friend of the Revolution cannot be a stranger to any 



BANCAL DES ISSARTS 313 

one who loves the Revolution, and who desires to 
contribute to its complete success." This was Manon's 
entree en mature. She ended her letter with a very 
clear-sighted observation on the political conditions in 
Lyons, and a sentence that shows her enthusiasm had 
not deflected her view of realities. *' A generation must 
pass away before the scars of the fetters that the peo- 
ple have worn so long disappear, and before the self- 
respect is born that renders man equal to his liberty, 
and protects him and it." 

These reflections and the earnestness in the writer 
that they implied did not frighten away Bancal. He 
accepted the invitation, and during the first week in 
July he and the Rolands rode out from Lyons to the 
Clos, where he spent a few delightful days and prom- 
ised to return in the summer. Bancal was a new type 
of humanity to Madame Roland. He was at once 
more a man of business and of the world than Lanthe- 
nas, more introspective and philosophical than Bosc, 
more poHshed and considerate than Roland. Bancal's 
love of liberty and devotion to the public good were 
tinged with exaltation, and consequently subject to 
an occasional melancholy reaction. Indeed, a ten- 
dency to depression tempered the ardent vitality of 
his mature manhood. At crucial moments a slight 
hesitation between warring ideals was apt not to 
arrest but to delay his decisions. But this predomi- 
nance of reflection over action was so slight, and gen- 
erally accompanied with such delicate consideration for 
not only the rights but the feelings of others, that it 
took on the air of renunciation rather than of inde- 
cision. A comfortable fortune had furthered his dis- 



314 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

interestedness and stimulated his natural generosity, 
and in the little coterie he filled the role of a modest 
Maecenas. 

To this sensitive, high-minded man Manon proved 
irresistible. Bancal was subjugated at once. And 
Manon ? She was used to rousing emotional as well 
as intellectual interest. The evident admiration of 
this accomplished and polished person she accepted 
quite naturally at first. He seemed to be but paying 
the customary tribute to her queenship, like the other 
house friends over whom she reigned so sweetly and 
playfully. 

A brisk correspondence followed Bancal's first visit. 
Manon's letters were sent first to Bosc, who showed 
them to Brissot and others of his friends in Paris, 
then franked them and forwarded them to Bancal, 
who obtained final possession of them. They form a 
curious melange of political and local news, philosophi- 
cal reflections, and friendly, almost affectionate mes- 
sages. 

The local news was exciting, at times alarming. 
The disorganization of the whole administrative ma- 
chine continued. With a discredited executive and a 
general lack of respect for authority, disorders naturally 
increased in the Lyonnais as they had in Paris, and 
throughout the country. Patriot and Royalist ahke 
were dissatisfied with the delays, many of them wise, 
and the compromises, some of them statesmanlike, of 
the National Assembly. The nobility, clergy, and the 
higher bourgeoisie grew colder towards the Revolu- 
tion. To its partisans they ascribed the increasing 
lawlessness and the universal insecurity; they foresaw 



BANCAL DES ISSARTS 315 

a general overturn {culbute generale) if order was not 
promptly restored. The generous outburst of feeling 
that had inspired the acts of the 4th of August, the 
noble passion for justice, for rendering unto the people 
what belonged to the people, had shrunk into a grudg- 
ing assent to a hard political necessity. The task in 
hours of gladness willed was being fulfilled in months 
of deepest gloom. The sale of ecclesiastical property 
augmented the discontent and alarm of the erstwhile 
privileged classes, and many sincerely believed that 
the salvation of France lay in a return to absolutism. 

Roland's sympathy with the artisan, his resolute 
and whole-hearted support of the Revolution was 
regarded as treachery to his own order. He was de- 
nounced as an agitator and a demagogue, and his wife 
shared his unpopularity. Prejudice and injustice were 
unfortunately not exclusively Royalist; the Revolu- 
tionists also had grown embittered and suspicious. 
Every act of violence was imputed by them to the 
machinations of aristocrats trying to discredit the gov- 
ernment; every uprising had been factitiously fomented 
by the agents of the court as a pretext for calling in 
troops to terrorize the people. Mistrust was general 
and was manifested sometimes tragically, often comi- 
cally. 

Madame Roland has been censured by one of her 
ablest biographers for her constant apprehension of a 
counter-revolution or of an armed invasion, for her ap- 
peals to the Revolutionary deputies and her insisting 
on perpetual vigilance. The papers found on a Royalist 
emissary arrested at Bourgoin proved the existence of 
a plot formidable enough to justify her fears. These 



3i6 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

letters showed that Artois was to invade Burgundy, the 
King was to escape from Paris and join him at Lyons, 
where, aided by foreign arms, the old regime was to 
be re-established. Madame Roland was not afraid of 
shadows. She was not a Cassandra predicting woe 
and defeat. Her letters to the "Triumvirate," as she 
called the three friends, Bancal, Bosc, and Lanthenas, 
were trumpet-calls to civic courage, spirited incitements 
to action. If she mourned over the edict of the Assem- 
bly, limiting the liberty of the press, if she very sensi- 
bly pleaded for an accounting of the expenditure of 
public moneys, *'toujours des millions y et jamais des 
comptes,^^ if she believed that "security is the tomb of 
liberty," and that "indulgence to men in authority 
tempts them to tyranny," it was not because her 
faith in the principles of the Revolution and in the 
inherent justice of it ever faltered. If to-day she 
seems overcredulous in her minute reports of the 
rumors, accusations, refutations, charges, and counter- 
charges that harassed Lyons throughout the summer 
of 1790, the real dangers of the situation and the con- 
stant menace of foreign invasion should be borne in 
mind. Manon did not fear for herself; her terrors were 
for the loss of liberty, for the return of the old vassal- 
age and the old abuses. And there are brave and 
wise words in her letters worthy of the child of Plu- 
tarch: "Quand on ne s'est pas habitue a identifier son 
interet et sa gloire avec le hien et la splendeur du general, 
on va toujours petitement, se recherchant soi-memey et 
perdant de vue le but auquel on devroit tendre.^' 

"There is no example of the peaceful regeneration 
of an empire; it is probably an illusion. Adversity is 



BANCAL DES ISSARTS 317 

the school of nations as of man, and I believe that we 
must be purified by it to be worthy. What shall we 
do ? Fight with courage and constancy. . . . Com- 
bat for combat, is it not sweeter to fight for the hap- 
piness of a whole nation than for one's own private 
felicity ? Is the life of the sage in society anything 
but a continual battle against prejudice and passions ? 
. . . They [the Royalists] will struggle in vain; blood 
will be shed but tyranny will not be re-established. 
Its iron throne is shaken throughout Europe, and the 
efforts of potentates only hasten its destruction. Let 
it fall. Even should we remain under its ruins a new 
generation will arise to enjoy the liberty that we have 
won for it, and to bless our efforts." "Either one must 
watch and preach till one's last breath or have nothing 
to do with revolution." These are brave words, but 
behind the sentences there is a courageous woman. 
The heroic fibre is sometimes a little hard, and the 
patriot is forced to be indifferent to the pain of others 
as well as to her own. In pursuing a straight line of 
action obstacles are more often destroyed than turned, 
and some gentle and delicate things are trodden down 
in the onward march. Madame Roland's impatience 
of half-measures is not always statesmanlike. In the 
present instance her dissatisfaction with the Assembly 
was justifiable; a conservative reaction had set in that 
threatened the liberties won during the past year. 

Between the storms France enjoyed some halcyon 
days, those of the Federation. From Paris Bancal 
had written of the great fete on the Champ de Mars. 
"There is a certain canto [sic] in the Iliad that threw 
me into a fever when I first read it; your description 



3i8 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

has done as much," Manon assured Bancal. How- 
ever, Roland regretted that the jed'eres should have 
kissed the dauphin's hand, but Manon was not dis- 
pleased at the unsympathetic attitude of the King; it 
would prevent him from profiting by the immense 
upwelling of love and enthusiasm that overflowed 
French hearts at this feast of fraternity. 

Meantime Lyons was in a ferment. A measure that 
Roland had ardently advocated, the suppression of the 
octrois^ had been passed by the municipal government 
on July 10. On July 13 the decree was rescinded by 
the Assembly, influenced by the remonstrances of the 
tax-farmers. The octrois had weighed heavily on the 
working people of Lyons, and the abolition of them 
had caused much rejoicing. Their re-establishment 
was immediately followed by an uprising, promptly 
crushed by troops, who then occupied the town. The 
revolutionists feared that the riot was deliberately in- 
stigated by the aristocrats to serve as a pretext for 
quartering foreign regiments in Lyons to aid a Royal- 
ist invasion from Savoy. 

Although Roland was at Le Clos during the distur- 
bance, he was accused of fomenting it. Belonging by 
birth to the nobility, by sympathy to the people, and 
by his activities to the bourgeoisiey Roland had ene- 
mies as well as friends in all classes. To reconnoitre, 
and to investigate the case against him, Madame Ro- 
land left the Clos on August 4, and rode to Lyons 
alone. "I don't care to have my husband go back to 
Lyons," she wrote Bancal; "an honest man is as 
quickly hanged as any one, and though it is glorious to 
die for one's country, it is not so to swing from a lamp- 



BANCAL DES ISSARTS 319 

post. ... As it is not yet the custom to hang women 
to lamp-posts, I shall direct my palfrey towards town 
to-morrow, Friday." She was hardly known in Lyons, 
where Roland was often taken for an abbe on account 
of his simple dress and grave manner, and, therefore, 
ran Httle risk in visiting it. On the evening of her 
arrival she wrote to Bancal that she had found the red 
flag floating over the town hall and the city under 
martial law. Foreign regiments were expected "to 
overawe the people," said the Royalists, "to facilitate 
the entrance of a Sardinian army with Artois at its 
head," whispered the patriots, and their surmise proved 
correct when Artois's emissary was captured a little 
later. Manon was in despair; "the counter-revolu- 
tion has begun." "The town is a sewer of the filth 
of the old regime." One hope remained: the national 
militia of Dauphine was to guard the frontier of Savoy, 
Her own grievance faded away beside the deeper 
anxieties, the hunger and misery of the people. She 
heard some vague accusations against Roland, but 
nothing precise, nothing that could be taken up and 
confuted. "We cannot abase ourselves to run after 
calumny; we cannot pursue reptiles," she wrote 
proudly. "I should not take it ill if we were called to 
the bar of the National Assembly. Our friend [Roland] 
would be like Scipio before the assembly of the people." 
In Villefranche, however, the most absurd rumors 
were rife. The town buzzed with gossip; accompanied 
by a woman whom in reality she had never met, Manon 
was reported to have visited the garrets of Lyons to 
bribe the outcasts of the city to riot; on one important 
occasion the commandant of the national guards was 



320 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

not on duty "because he was at the feet of Madame 
Roland," slanderers averred, though she did not know 
him and was at Le Clos at the time. These were but 
old tales new vamped. The Abbe Guillon, credulous, 
as a typical mauvaise langue is apt to be, gravely reports 
that when Roland was a candidate for municipal office 
in 1789, he frequented low pot-houses in disguise,''got 
drunk with the workmen, begged for votes, and dis- 
tributed incendiary pamphlets ! 

Although the false reports about herself did not 
ruffle Manon, and she took no steps to refute them — 
"to justify a woman is almost always to compromise 
her," "I shall be washed white when the innocence of 
my husband is proved" — she was angered by her 
brother-in-law, the canon's, momentary belief in 
them. "If any one had told me that through fanati- 
cism you had murdered your brother I should have 
immediately rejected the stupid tale, notwithstanding 
my knowledge of your opinions," she exclaimed indig- 
nantly. "You are wrong," replied the ecclesiastic, to 
whom the comparison could not have been ingratiat- 
ing; "one can only answer for one's self, and cannot 
always do that." "Truly," returned Manon. "I see 
that in Alexander's place you would not have taken 
the potion from Philip. Also," she added mentally, 
"you are not a hero" (July 28). Poor Manon found 
few of them outside of book covers. 

Two days later (August 30) Bancal and Lanthenas 
arrived at Le Clos for the long-promised visit. It 
proved a pleasant one. Though Manon told Bosc that 
the little company paid more attention to the songs of 
the birds than the decrees of the legists, and every- 



BANCAL DES ISSARTS 321 

body wrote all the mornings in busy solitude, the after- 
noons were spent together. The friends explored the 
woods, preached to the peasants, played battledore 
and shuttlecock, argued with the cure, planned a politi- 
cal and educational campaign, and talked over the 
details of their future life in common. This Utopian 
scheme was gradually abandoned as interest in na- 
tional affairs deepened, and Brook Farm had no 
French predecessor; the project was, however, seriously 
discussed all through the summer and autumn. 

During the villeggiatura at Le Clos, Bancal's admira- 
tion of Manon had grown with proximity. She was at 
her best in the country, more spontaneous, more care- 
free. Something of the gay abandon of the south and 
the season relaxed her habitual strenuousness and 
heightened her glowing vitality. Beautiful, judged by 
classic canon or conventional standard, she was not, 
but the charm of Manon's bright face illumined by the 
radiant energy of her intelligence, of her look, vivid as 
a flame, the magic of her mellow voice, vibrating 
deliciously when she was stirred by some hope for 
the future, some wrong or shame of the present, every 
man who knew her well has acknowledged. And Ban- 
cal's immediate surrender to the spell of her fervent 
personality was followed by a nobler capitulation to 
her courage, her impassioned interest in abstract ques- 
tions of right and duty, her mental integrity that never 
tried to elude the conclusions of straight reasoning, 
and suflPered no compromise with consequences. A 
woman who induces a man's feeling for her to run in 
the same channel with his finer enthusiasms inspires 
devotion, even when she does not confer happiness. 



322 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

But to love a woman wedded to duty is to forswear 
felicity; Bancal left Le Clos on October 2, agitated and 
melancholy, and Manon's first letter to him afterwards 
was incoherent and "adorably imprudent," Michelet 
says. What had happened to tinge with warmer color 
the lucid crystal of their friendship ? Probably some 
betrayal on Bancal's part of a deeper feeling than 
Manon's confiding affection for him authorized had 
touched and distressed her. She had already warned 
him that her friendship must be based on esteem, and 
that his high ideals were the source and guaranty of 
their mutual attachment. Such a notice to trespassers 
was in nowise fatuous in a period of almost obligatory 
gallantry, when a gentleman who found himself alone 
with a lady and did not pay court to her was consid- 
ered ill bred. Bancal was a man of social experience, 
a word to the worldly wise was not amiss, so Manon 
had early in their acquaintance sent him a gentle 
caveat (August 4, 1790): "At sunrise to-daj^ I left my 
solitude and mon ami (Roland). How pleasant it was 
in the woods to give myself up to the sight of nature 
awakening from sleep ! I often thought of you as I 
passed over the road we travelled together. You are 
called to know all that can be known of happiness in 
this world, for you feel the price of virtue; there is 
nothing beyond that ! But it is not of this that I 
wish to write you." This prettily veiled admonition, 
a manifest hors d'ceuvre, was followed by a straightfor- 
ward account of Manon's eventful day in Lyons (Au- 
gust 4). 

Two months later her sunny tranquillity was troub- 
led. Evidently Bancal was more redoubtable than 



BANCAL DES ISSARTS 323 

Bosc and Lanthenas had been, whose boyish affection 
Manon's tact and wisdom had transmuted into dis- 
interested and devoted friendship. The elder-sisterly, 
half-laughing, half-scolding tone would be quite out 
of place with Bancal, who was her senior, and a man 
of the world. The strictest of women is apt to look 
indulgently on the victim of her attractions, even 
when she is not moved to reciprocal tenderness, and 
there is no doubt that Manon for a time, at least, was 
affected by Bancal's infatuation. 

Immediately after leaving Le Clos, Bancal wrote 
Roland, urging a realization of the project of a life in 
common. Roland answered cordially, and sent on the 
letter to Manon. Bancal's eagerness, and perhaps the 
intimate satisfaction she felt in it, startled her. The 
prospect of daily contact with a sympathetic man 
who had, perhaps, betrayed the ardor of his feeling 
for her, seemed too pleasant to be safe. Roland's abso- 
lute confidence imposed flawless loyalty. Bancal was 
a friend, beloved by both husband and wife. He must 
continue to be so, and Manon desired to dismiss the 
would-be lover but to keep the friend. Her methods 
iare open to criticism; their results were admirable. 
She wrote Bancal straight from her heart, confessed 
her fears, declared her belief in his honor, made him 
the guardian of their conduct by leaving everything in 
his hands, and mingling dovelike candor with ophidian 
sagacity, forbade him to hope while bidding him not 
to despair. 

Peals of thunder were rolling from hill to hill, the 
air grew black and heavy, while Manon wrote. It 
seems as though the alternate depression and exalta- 



324 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

tion of nerves relaxed and strung dominated her as she 
wrote, obscuring her habitual lucidity and deflecting 
her usual straightforwardness. 

"I take up my pen without knowing what it will 
indite, without deciding what I am going to write. 
My mind is busy with a thousand ideas that doubtless 
I should find easier to express if they were accompanied 
by less agitating feelings. Why are my eyes dimmed 
by tears that fall only to well up again ? My will is 
upright, my heart is pure, and yet I am not at ease. 
It will be the charm of our lives, and we shall not be 
useless to our fellows, you say of the affection that 
unites us, and these consoling words have not yet 
restored my peace; it is because I am not sure of your 
happiness, and I should never forgive myself for hav- 
ing troubled it. It is because I have believed that 
you have built it, partly at least, on a false basis, on 
a hope that I ought to forbid. . . . Who can foresee 
the effect of violent agitations too often renewed .? 
Would they not be dangerous if they had no other 
effect than the languor that follows them, weakens 
the moral sense, and leaves it no longer equal to any 
emergency .? 

*'I am mistaken. You do not experience this un- 
worthy alternation of feeling. You might be sad at 
times. You would never be weak. The thought of 
your strength gives me back my own, and I shall taste 
the happiness that Heaven has allotted to me, believ- 
ing that it has not permitted me to trouble yours, and 
has even bestowed on me some means of increasing it. 
. . . Tell me, or rather let us know what you are 
doing, your projects, what you have learned of public 



BANCAL DES ISSARTS 325 

affairs, and what you propose to do for them." Here 
Manon sketched a charming picture of Bancal's home- 
coming to Clermont, and laments his necessity for sac- 
rificing domestic Hfe to duty to the nation. Then, 
with a sudden return to sentiment: "Why is it that 
the sheet I am writing cannot be sent to you without 
mystery ? Why can I not show to all eyes what I 
would dare to offer to Divinity itself? Assuredly I 
can call Heaven to witness my vows and my intentions. 
It is sweet to think that it hears, sees me, and judges 
me. Of what value, then, would be social inconsisten- 
cies and human prejudices, through which it is difficult 
to guide one's heart, if to disdain for empty conven- 
tions were not united courage for self-sacrifice, firmness 
of character, and purity of intention to keep to the 
straight line of duty .? 

''When shall we see each other again ? A question 
which I often ask myself, and which I dare not answer. 
But why do we seek to divine the future that Nature 
conceals from us .? Let us leave it under the imposing 
veil with which she covers it. . . . We have over it 
only one influence, a great one, doubtless — to prepare 
our future happiness by a wise use of the present. . . . 
Thus, the dearest friends can bear absence because 
they can consecrate their time to cultivating virtues of 
which they can give an account to each other. What 
duties are not made delectable by such a charming 
obligation .? Can we complain of anything in the 
world when one has a soul to appreciate this privilege .'' 
And ought I to have alarms and fears for you who feel 
it so keenly ? No, they are unjust to you. Pardon 
me those fears which are caused by that tender anxiety 



326 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

too near to the weakness of a sex whose courage even 
is not always firm. . . . 

"The fine days that we spent here together have 
not been followed by others like them. The very eve- 
ning you left the weather changed, and, oddly enough 
in this season, for the past week we have not had 
twenty-four hours without thunder. It has just rum- 
bled again. I like the color that it lends to our land- 
scape; it is august and sombre, but even if it were ter- 
rible it would not terrify me. The phenomena of 
nature . . . only offer to a being of feehng, preoccu- 
pied with great interests, minor and less important 
scenes than those of which his own heart is the theatre. 
Adieu, my friend, it is almost unkind to talk to you 
when you cannot answer me, but if there is some cruelty 
in taking this slight advantage you will pardon me." 

Twenty days later in another private chat on paper 
— "une petite causerie a part'' — Manon had recovered 
her wonted poise and serenity. Bancal had suddenly 
decided to visit England, leaving his political career 
and adjourning his missionary tours indefinitely. He 
believed, and wisely, perhaps, that souls do change 
with skies, and that the best remedium amoris is ab- 
sence, fresh realms for thought, and new pasture for 
the eye. Manon divined his reason, and reluctantly 
approved of it, in a rather sad but courageous letter. 
Eudora is also to leave home for a convent school, and 
the critical but fond mother is already suffering the 
sullen ache of separation from her petite, to whose 
education she would gladly give all the time spent on 
the Dictionnaire. "To lessen the sorrow that the ob- 
ject of my journey reawakens, I shall take advantage 



BANCAL DES ISSARTS 327 

of it to make some purchases which concern you, since 
they are to clothe these orphans that you wished to 
help. I confess that the pleasure of doing good in the 
name of those who are dear to me cannot be too 
highly paid. Since destiny weighs the pain of human 
beings against their pleasure, whoever can love and 
be useful cannot complain. ... It is impossible, my 
dear friend, that we should ever cease to understand 
each other. Imagination wanders, reason errs, phi- 
losophy even deceives itself or us, sometimes, but a 
true heart turns always towards the truth. I stop 
here in order to add something to-morrow before 
sending this letter to the post. It is midnight. I am 
in the study — where very soon I shall be unable to 
read alone before retiring. They have dislodged me 
for this winter. . . . Good-by a thousand times, or, 
rather, never good-by. " (October 28.) What thought, 
what memory caught at her flying pen, what picture 
filled the space Manon left after the word study ? 
An innocent, even if a tender one, may be safely as- 
sumed. 

During the quiet months that followed BancaPs 
departure Manon "found herself" again, and the rela- 
tions between the friends declined in intensity. Grad- 
ually the tone of the letters altered and personal feeling 
was merged in patriotic emotion. The personal note 
is often struck, however. Indeed, all Manon's letters 
show unflagging interest in her correspondents' tasks 
and opinions, as well as in the news of their daily life. 
Indeed, the sentiments and thoughts of her friends 
were more important to her than external facts. As 
the march of public events quickened in pace, how- 



328 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

ever, the tone of the letters became more and more 
political. The transitions were gentle, there was no 
sudden quenching of the fitful flame of passion which 
gradually sank into a warm, steadfast glow of amicable 
regard worthy of friendship's altar. 

In Manon's method, if what was partly instinct, 
partly design, can be so termed, an attack, a tumult of 
feeling, a brief period of stress and struggle, were but 
the initial stage of a loyal and devoted comradeship, 
the novice's probation in the sentimental life. She was 
extremely susceptible to the pain she caused, perhaps 
in some instances she overrated it, and lavished an 
excess of balm on a slight wound. Still she was a bet- 
ter judge of these cases than we can be who can only 
see them dimly through the faded ink and fallen dust 
of old letters. 

"She had the coquetry of virtue," Dumouriez re- 
marked, a connoisseur of more concrete coquetries, and 
he was right. Manon desired to please, aimed to 
attach — pour le bon motif — and was bent on the con- 
quest of those she admired and esteemed. She was 
an adept in the delicate art of attraction, but with her 
it was a delicate art, not a crude appeal to a primitive 
instinct. No one of her admirers was not a better 
man for having loved her. As Circe's potion made 
brutes of men, Manon's pure spell awoke in them the 
hero. 

It is not difficult to recall an honorable person to 
reason, but to render duty lovely, and to fix, without 
pedantry or prudishness, the limits of an attachment 
is a rare achievement. Manon's warm heart and light 
hand softened her rigors, but she did not spare them. 



BANCAL DES ISSARTS 329 

She took it for granted that the right was as dear to 
Bancal as to herself, and by considering him irre- 
proachable she kept him so — absence and other absorb- 
ing interests aiding. 

In reading a correspondence of the age of Rousseau 
and sensibihty, it is well to consider that the writers 
revelled in the unreserved expression of their emotions, 
which one suspects grew in intensity with the effort 
to portray them. Poor blind Madame du DefFand, 
old enough to be his grandmother, scared Horace Wal- 
pole by the ardor of her letters. The Duchesse de 
Choiseul, and the Abbe Barthelemy, the recipients of 
equally affectionate messages, could have reassured the 
embarrassed Englishman as to the honorability of the 
marquise's intentions. 

Manon was apt to be captivated from time to time 
by a new interest or a new friend, and for the mo- 
ment Bancal held the field. She distinguished him 
from the other members of the triumvirate by occa- 
sionally sending him a letter for himself alone, but 
many of her communications are joint affairs, Roland, 
Lanthenas, and Bosc writing on the same sheets, or 
interpolating messages. None of Bancal's replies have 
been preserved, only his comments on the margins of 
Manon's letters. In 1835 Henriette, Bancal's eldest 
daughter, brought these papers to Renuel, who pub- 
lished them with the admirable and now classic "In- 
troduction" of Sainte-Beuve. Many of these letters 
were misdated; thanks to M. Perroud, they are now 
correctly arranged, and as useful to the historian as to 
the biographer. 

Bancal's brusque decision to visit England, and his 



330 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

abandonment of the scheme for the simple life, sur- 
prised his friends. He explained his change of plans 
plausibly enough as a desire to study free institutions 
at close range and to strengthen the ties between the 
English society of "Friends of the Revolution" and 
the French revolutionists. Bancal's ambition had 
been humbled at the same time that his heart was 
wounded, for he had not been elected either in Cler- 
mont or in Paris to the political office he coveted. 
Mid-November saw him in London in a circle of lib- 
erals: Quakers, Unitarians, and Deists, all reformers 
and innovators, cosmopolitan in their sympathies, 
generous in their aims, and friends of New France. 
In December Bancal's father died, and Manon wrote 
the bereaved son, who reproached himself bitterly for 
his absence from home at the time, an exquisite letter 
informed with what one is tempted to call the logic 
of the heart. Fearing the effect of grief and loneliness 
on a sensitive and melancholy temperament in the 
gloom of an English winter, she had begged him to 
return to his own family. 

Deeply affected by his grief, and playing in all sin- 
cerity a woman's favorite part of paraclete, Manon, 
rather indiscreetly (but whenever was she prudent .?), 
confessed that, though she had silenced every consid- 
eration that was not for Bancal's honor and happiness, 
as dear to her as her own: "Some day I shall show 
you some things that will cause you little surprise, but 
which will surely please you. I have not spent the 
time that has passed in your absence without putting 
on paper different things intended for you. You will 
see them in due time, for I have had no thought that 



BANCAL DES ISSARTS 331 

was not worthy of me to express and of you to hear." 
Also, she had arranged to have the papers sent to him 
during a sudden illness when she believed herself dan- 
gerously ill. 

"We have been brought to the same point of view 
by different ways. The twilight of the tomb is more 
fitted to reveal truth than the dazzling splendor of 
the sun. . . . 'There is no more peace for me,' you 
have dared to say. . . . With an enlightened mind 
that knows its duties and cannot wander from virtue, 
and a generous heart that enjoys its exquisite charm, 
couldst thou be unhappy and pity thyself? No, for 
then thou wouldst not be thyself, or my friend. Ah ! 
Dare to look your life in the face, count the good things 
with which you can embellish it, and thou wilt be 
more just, and give thanks to the gods. " (January 26, 
1791.) 

After this avowal there naturally followed a reac- 
tion, a reasonable one, for on the ist of February 
Roland had been given a special mission to Paris, and 
his wife was to accompany him. Manon then feared 
that her insistence on Bancal's return to France might 
be misinterpreted, and wrote (February 11, 1791): 

"Lanthenas [who had begged Bancal to return to 
France] wrote you formerly from a heart devoted to 
the duties of an apostleship that he fills with admirable 
zeal and forgetfulness of self. He cannot imagine that 
a French citizen ought to be anywhere but among his 
brothers, or occupied with anything but serving and 
enlightening them. While I applaud his conduct, 
which adds to my esteem for him, I do not adopt his 
views exclusively. There is more than one way of 



332 MANON PHLIPON ROLAND 

being useful, and each one is permitted to choose his 
own, that for which he is most fitted. ... I beheve 
this from what you have done, for you have not acted 
by chance, but have wished as much as any one to 
serve your country." She advises him to seek counsel 
of his friends, and ends with a word of warning. "I 
shall not have the false delicacy to conceal from you 
that I am going to Paris, and I will push frankness far 
enough to agree that this circumstance adds much to 
my scruples in inviting you to return. There is in our 
situation an infinite number of trifles and shades of 
meaning that are keenly felt, though they cannot be 
explained. But what is very clear and what I can 
express frankly is that I should never wish to see you 
at the expense of the reason that should guide your 
conduct, and that you had allowed to yield to a pass- 
ing motive or a partial aflPection. Remember that if 
I need the happiness of my friends, this happiness is 
attached for those who feel as we do to absolute irre- 
proachabiHty." 

Poor Bancal ! This reminder, following a tender 
missive, was a sharp touch of frost on rebudding 
flowers of feeling. No wonder that he underlined in- 
dignantly the words " wished to serve your country," 
and commented between the lines: "Wished ! What 
an expression ! When I was an active elector in 1789, 
member of the first permanent Committee, exposed to 
all the dangers, all the hardships of the Revolution, 
when I sat continuously for two days and a night in a 
Committee of Subsistence that saved Paris from fam- 
ine; I have done more than wished. . . . Can it be 
forgotten that a member of the Permanent Committee 



BANCAL DES ISSARTS 333 

who created and assembled the National Guard has 
done more for his country in three days than others 
could do in years ?" 

Thus protested the misunderstood and undervalued 
Bancal, who then decided to remain in England. 



APPENDIXES 



APPENDIX I 
THE PORTRAITS OF MADAME ROLAND 

**Was Manon good to look at?" we wondered when she 
o'ernamed her suitors, for "in speaking of a lady these trifles 
become important," Gibbon said apologetically before cata- 
loguing Zenobia's attractions. The modern historian is not 
apologetic. Following Michelet and Taine, he endeavors to 
reconstruct the appearance and habitat of his subjects. The 
shell of an exceptional human creature is significant, especially 
when it belongs to a sex wherein function is largely deter- 
mined by form. The archaeologist and the art critic aid 
the biographer, and research now scrutinizes marble and 
bronze, wood and stone, canvas and ivory, as closely as 
texts and MSS., and of late years some notable additions 
have been made to the list of authentic portraits of Madame 
Roland. 

She was often sketched by her literary contemporaries, 
and their descriptions have helped to identify some new 
discoveries in galleries and private collections. She left a 
most carefully finished pen portrait of herself; it might seem 
flattered if her own words were not supplemented and cor- 
roborated by those of friends and opponents, who saw her 
as she saw herself. She was tall rather than short, plump 
rather than slender, held herself very erect, moved lightly 
and quickly, and possessed a firm and graceful carriage. 
Her face was not striking except for its brilliant coloring, 
its sweetness, and expression. Not a feature was regular, 
but they were all pleasing. Her mouth was large compared 
with the conventional rosebud, and more critical than tender, 
but her smile was radiant, and her teeth well-matched pearls. 
Her eyes were hazel gray pers, like those of Henry IV's 
Belle Gabrielle, hardly large enough for her own taste, and 
a trifle prominent; her dark eyebrows, very delicately pen- 
cilledy were vivaciously arched. Her nose was the chief 

337 



338 APPENDIX I 

sinner against regularity in her face; it was thick and rather 
blunt at the end, a witty, curious, loquacious nose, comelier 
in profile than in full face, Manon's chin was, she confesses, 
of the type physiognomists, notably her friend Lavater, 
attribute to the voluptuary, and she adds with a touch of 
regret: "Indeed, when I combine all the peculiarities of my 
character, I doubt if ever an individual was more formed for 
pleasure, or has tasted it so little." 

Manon's forehead, generally covered, was high; her com- 
plexion was more animated than delicate; even in maturity 
her wholesome color mantled and paled like a sensitive 
girl's. Well-rounded arms, elegantly formed hands, with 
long, dexterous fingers, close this catalogue raisonne of her 
attractions. The poor prisoner counted them as the de- 
spoiled sadly compute their stolen riches: *'I have lost 
many of them, especially such as depend upon bloom and 
plumpness, but those which remain are sufficient to conceal, 
without any assistance of art, five or six years of my age, 
and even the persons who see me every day must be told 
of it to believe me more than two or three and thirty. My 
portrait has been often drawn, painted, and engraved, but 
none of these presentments give an idea of my person (the 
cameo of Langlois is the least bad). It is difficult to seize, 
because I have more soul than face, more mind than features. 
An ordinary artist cannot express this; it is probable that 
he would not see it. My face grows animated in proportion 
to the interest with which I am inspired, I generally please 
because I dislike to offend, but it is not granted to all to 
find me handsome, or to discover my worth. Camille 
[Desmoulins] was right when he expressed his amazement 
that *at my age and with so little beauty' I still had what 
he called adorers. I have never spoken to him, but it is 
probable that with a person of his kind I should be cold and 
silent, if I were not absolutely repellent.*' 

Truly a comprehensive setting forth of the outer woman. 
Is the painter too complaisant for her model ? Others have 
sketched more slightly the same subject; we can glance at 
their impressions, 

Arthur Young, who saw Madame Roland in December, 
1789, wrote vaguely of her that she was young and hand- 
some. Lemontey, who knew her before '89, is less concise. 



APPENDIX I 339 

"Her eyes, the shape of her head, and her hair were remarka- 
bly beautiful. Her delicate complexion had a bloom and a 
color which, joined to her expression of reserve and modesty, 
made her look much younger than she was. I did not find 
in her the facile elegance of the Parisian which she attrib- 
utes to herself in her Memoirs; not that I mean that she 
was awkward, because what is simple and natural will never 
lack grace. I remember that the first time that I saw her 
she realized for me my idea of the little girl of Vevey who 
turned so many heads, the Julie of J. J. Rousseau. And when 
I heard her the illusion was still more complete. Madame 
Roland spoke well, too well. One's vanity would have 
liked to find something studied in what she said, but hers 
was simply a too perfect gift of nature. Wit, good sense, 
propriety of expression, piquant reason, simple grace, flowed 
without study between teeth of ivory and rosy lips; force 
Halt de s'y resigner." 

Dumouriez, the colleague of Roland in the Ministry, who 
saw madame frequently, described her as "a woman between 
thirty and forty, very blooming, with a most interesting 
face, and always elegantly dressed" (Memoirs, HI). Tissot, 
a contemporary historian of the Revolution, says of her: 
"Without being regularly beautiful, Madame Roland had 
her own kind of beauty; an elegant figure, easy and natural 
movements, a kind smile, an air of candor and serenity; 
her large black eyes, full of vivacity, crowned with eyebrows 
dark like her hair, reflected in their mobile expression all 
that passed in her heart" (Histoire de la Revolution, 
Tome HI). 

Women's portraits of women are generally more realistic 
than those of men. Madame Roland was sketched by two 
clever authoresses, who were also her friends and admirers. 
Madame Sophie Grandchamp's first impression of her was 
obtained at the Jacobin Club in 1791 : "I still see that famous 
woman seated near a little table, in a riding habit, her black 
hair cut a la jockei [square across the forehead], her brilliant 
complexion, her soft yet piercing eyes." 

To Helena Williams, the English republican, Madame 
Roland appeared "tall and well shaped; her air was dignified, 
and although more than thirty-five years of age, she was still 
handsome. Her countenance had an expression of uncom- 



340 APPENDIX I 

mon sweetness, and her full dark eyes beamed with the 
brightest rays of intelligence." 

To Count Beugnot, who disliked political women, who was 
a royalist, and who had never seen Madame Roland until 
he met her in the Conciergerie, we owe the most finished of 
these pen portraits: "Madame Roland was from thirty- 
five to forty years old; her face was not regularly beauti- 
ful but very agreeable . . . her figure was gracefully 
rounded, and her hand was perfectly modelled. Her glance 
was full of expression, and even in repose her face was noble 
and engaging. She had no need to speak to be suspected of 
wit, but no woman spoke with more purity, grace, and ele- 
gance. She owed perhaps to the habit of speaking Italian 
the talent to give to the French tongue a rhythm and a 
truly novel cadence. She set off the harmony of her voice 
by gestures full of nobility and truth, and by the expression 
of her eyes that became animated with her discourse, and I 
felt each day a new charm in listening to her, less in what she 
said than in the magic of her speech." 

If for a plastic image of this graceful, brilliant woman we 
consult the prints in the Coste collection at Lyons, that of 
Vatel at Versailles, those of the Bibliotheque Nationale, 
and the Musee Carnavalet, some idea of Madame Roland, 
colorless, silent, and in repose, may be gained. In them she 
appears as a piquant, attractive person with a clever, amiable 
face, somewhat lacking in distinction. What is sadly want- 
ing in them is the spirit and elevation which her many inter- 
ests and high enthusiasm lent her when she spoke or thought 
or felt, and which were so perfectly expressed in her mobile 
face that "you would have said her very body thought"; 
in a word : transparency. Hers was not the beauty of noble 
or delicate lines; she would have been plain in a photograph, 
and in a good engraving is only pleasing. 

In the chateau of Rosiere near Bourgoin (Isere), the home 
of the Rolands' great-granddaughter, Madame Taillet, is a 
drawing in red chalk, somewhat faded, of Madame Roland. 
Her descendants consider it the best likeness of their ances- 
tress. According to family tradition, it was drawn in prison 
and given to the bonne, Marguerite Fleury, for Eudora 
Roland shortly before her mother's death. It is a profile; 



APPENDIX I 341 

indeed, Madame Roland's people believe that she was never 
drawn or painted except in this way, possibly because she 
mentioned in her detailed description of herself that her 
nose "a little thick at the end, appeared less so in profile." 
A copy of this drawing in black crayon also exists at Rosiere, 
made (1827) by Eliza Bosc, the daughter of the Rolands' 
devoted friend, and a second copy, by Mademoiselle Melanie 
Guerin, is in Paris in the apartment of a granddaughter of 
Madame Roland, Madame Marillier, 

Most of the engravings were made after this portrait, 
and they all possess a strong family likeness. The propor- 
tions of the features differ slightly in Bonneville's, Pasquier's, 
Nicollet's, and Gaucher's plates. Dien has added a cap to 
his rather ordinary head, and Mademoiselle Aspasie La 
Ferriere and Delpech have perhaps sweetened and softened 
the traits of the original drawing. After it also was modelled 
the medallion by David d'Angers. The cameo of the 
Carnavalet suggests Gaucher's engraving, while Couriger's 
vigorous little medal in the Bibliotheque Nationale shows a 
more direct inspiration. 

The coiffure and costume are the same in all these different 
renderings. The hair cut short across the forehead and 
rolled at the sides of the head a la jockei, as Madame Grand- 
champ called it, hangs loosely in rich curls on the shoulders. 
The dress is the tight-fitting, double-breasted coat of 1792 
with its two rows of buttons and buckled belt (seen more 
plainly in Bonneville's plate than in the others). The 
crossed neckerchief is worn close and high, and a collarette 
of ribbon is knotted under the chin. 

In a weakly painted miniature in my own possession that 
closely resembles Mademoiselle Aspasie La Ferriere's draw- 
ing, the hair is powdered, and the dress and ribbon necklet 
are red. The lines of the profile have been retouched in black 
and the roses have faded from the face, as in so many old 
miniatures that have been exposed to the light. Color was 
Madame Roland's strong point, and the brush should have 
treated her more tenderly than the burin, but her friend 
Champagneux says in his preface to an edition of her Mem- 
oirs (that of 1800) that four artists had failed in painting 
her. A silhouette of her with her husband and child, by 



342 APPENDIX I 

Lavater, at Rosiere, and her portrait by the physionotrace 
have never been reproduced, but they probably would prove 
equally unsatisfactory.* 

From M. Perroud I learn that M. Nouvion, a magistrate 
of Nimes, possesses a portrait of Madame Roland by Prud- 
hon, painted in 1792, which Madame Taillet considers au- 
thentic, and that another portrait is owned by M. le comte 
Duchatel, ex-ambassador to Vienna. In the Paris exhibition 
of Portraits of Women some years ago, there was a canvas 
said to represent Madame Roland seated on a sofa with a 
little dog at her side. 

I have not seen these three pictures, or any reproductions 
of them. Among the portraits called Madame Roland, 
with no justification for the title, is a painting of a pretty 
woman with blue eyes and chestnut hair in the Musee 
Carnavalet, which is manifestly apocryphal, and a portrait 
by Heinsius at Versailles. The latter represents an affected 
person, with a vulgar simper and a bold expression, exceed- 
ingly decolletee. The attribution is unsupported by docu- 
mentary evidence, and seems an affront to the memory of 
the modest and dignified citoyenne. Madame Roland's 
family and Madame Fougere, widow of M. Fougere, who 
collected and edited many of the Rapiers Roland, protested 
against this unwarranted ascription, but it has not been cor- 
rected either in the official guides or on the picture. M. 
de Nolhac has, however, promised that in the next edition 
of the catalogue a sceptical interrogation-point shall follow 
the name. This portrait has been so often reproduced by 
photography, on postal cards and in works on Madame Ro- 
land, notably Dauban's, that I may be pardoned for insisting 
on its probable spuriousnesSo 

As to the terra-cotta bust of Morin, executed in 1790, now 
in the collection of M. Taigny, reproduced in Armand 
Dayot's Revolution Fran9aise, it does not bear the slightest 
resemblance to Madame Roland's authentic portraits, and 
if intended for her the sculptor was curiouslv unfaithful 
to his model. 

Of Mademoiselle Phlipon only one, a childishly ill-drawn 
engraving, has come to light. It is now in the collection of 

*The physionotrace portrait has_been reproduced; doubtless since the 
above was written. — Ed. 



APPENDIX I 343 

prints in the Musee Carnavalet, and was published by M. 
Join-Lambert in his Mariage de Madame Roland. This may- 
be the portrait, drawn by her father, which Manon gave to 
Sophie Cannet (August 20, 1774), and which Roland saw in 
Amiens before he met the original. The rough little en- 
graving may suggest Manon as a jolly peasant lass trotting 
to Etampes on her donkey, but is too feebly treated to be a 
satisfactory portrait. 

A charming little head in the Musee Carnavalet, labelled 
"Madame Roland when a child," is of a later period in style 
than that of Manon's girlhood. It may possibly represent 
Eudora Roland, her daughter. 

Though the wife of the minister of the interior was often 
engraved, painted, and modelled in 1792, there are no por- 
traits of the comparatively obscure Madame de la Platiere 
from 1780-90. Some years ago M. Gonsse discovered a 
bust of a nameless lady, by an unknown sculptor, in the attic 
of the ducal palace at Nevers, which he named Madame 
Roland, and ascribed to the Lyonnese sculptor Chinard, a 
friend of the Rolands. It is a thinner, sharper, more un- 
easily alert person than the famiUar engravings of the Revo- 
lution show. The face is worn, almost haggard, and the 
expression is unquiet, the mouth ironical. If it is indeed a 
portrait of Madame Roland it differs curiously from the one 
modelled later by Chinard, now in the collection of M. 
Aynard in Lyons. 

The Fougere legacy of 1899 to the National Library of 
Paris included a brilliant drawing by Danloux of Madame 
Roland. It is a rather bravura portrait, but is as distinguished 
as it is spirited. The hair is curled, frosted with powder, 
and piled high on the head, in the fashion of the early nineties. 
The chin is lifted, neckerchief and revers are a-flutter, and 
in the superb carriage of head and shoulders there is some- 
thing of the arrogant bel air of the fine lady. 

There is no touch of haughtiness, characteristic or conven- 
tional, in M. Aynard's beautiful terra-cotta term modelled 
after Chinard's return from Rome. The sculptor Chinard 
was one of the two French artists, pensioners of the Villa 
Medici, who were imprisoned by the Pope for their republi- 
can opinions. It was to liberate them that Madame Roland 
wrote the well-known letter to the '* Prince Bishop of Rome." 



344 APPENDIX I 

Perhaps the remembrance of this signal service was in the 
sculptor's mind, ennobling his model. Undoubtedly his 
Roman sojourn had enlarged his rather literal first manner; 
in any case, Chinard's is the most genial and captivating 
of Madame Roland's many portraits. It justifies the en- 
thusiasm of her contemporaries, for which scant excuse 
is offered by the engravings that head the Memoirs. 

Chinard's bust represents a woman in the late summer of 
life. Her classic robe is folded tunicwise over the bosom, 
her dense hair falls loosely on her shoulders and is cut square 
across the brow. The special charm of the work is its charac- 
terization. The sympathetic face, grave yet tender, gener- 
ously rather than keenly intelligent, may express the genius 
of the Gironde, ardent yet magnanimous. 

The only portrait of herself, however, that received 
Madame Roland's approval was "le camee de Langlois" 
which she temperately termed "the least bad of them all." 
Where is this camee de Langlois? Has it survived the wreck 
of so many stronger things \ What is it ^ Has it come down 
to us ? These questions M. Vatel, the historian of the 
Gironde, asked himself, and time and effort answered them. 
To appreciate the knowledge, patience, intelligence, and intui- 
tion with which M. Vatel pursued his quest, his own account 
of it should be read. The problem, worthy of the keenest 
sleuths of fiction, was: to find a small, fragile object, not 
remarkable per se, of little intrinsic value, the property of a 
condemned person whose goods were confiscated, which 
disappeared in a time of revolution when property was no 
more respected than life. This problem was solved in a 
manner which would have honored those world-renowned 
specialists M. Dupin and Sherlock Holmes. No tale of 
Gaboriau's shows more constructive ingenuity, no Sergeant 
Cuff of fiction manifests a more remarkable fusion of in- 
stinctive flair and ratiocination, than this learned and digni- 
fied magistrate in his tireless yet discreet pursuit. If the 
story of Madame Roland's MSS. is a romance of adventure, 
the discovery of her miniature is an exciting detective story. 
It would take too long to follow the process; the result of 
M. Vatel's chase claims our interest. 

The Archives of Paris are beautifully housed in the Hotel 
de Soubise. Few visitors who come to see the elegantly deco- 



APPENDIX I 345 

rated rooms, the letters of Henry IV, or the signature (cross) 
of Jeanne d'Arc, notice in case No. 125 a quantity of tattered, 
blotted MSS. and the miniature of a woman set in a thin 
rim of gold. It has evidently been taken out of a box-lid 
or a more elaborate frame, for the slim golden circle is battered 
and the miniature is cracked. It represents a woman still 
young, rosy, dark haired and eyed, with the features, the 
shape of the head, the coiffure, and the coloring of Madame 
Roland. It also resembles her great-granddaughter, Madame 
Taillet. A small fichu en sautoir, a simple white gown, a 
broad blue sash, date the costume 1792. The facture of 
the miniature is that of Jerome Langlois, a pupil of Vien, 
the well-known miniaturist. Langlois had made a specialty 
of "portraits en miniatures et en camees" ; this latter term 
seems to designate some particular technical process. This 
one is au fixe, as it was called in the eighteenth century; 
it adhered to the glass; which is unfortunate, as the glass is 
cracked, and the fissure runs through the chin. A painter 
who examined the miniature for me pronounced it a clever 
piece of painting, a little forced in effect, and not quite true 
in lighting, as the side of the face in shadow is not on the 
same atmospheric plane as the lighted side. It was interest- 
ing to discover later that this same peculiarity had been ob- 
served by M. Sensier, an expert in the art and history of the 
Revolution, who in 1872 inspected the miniature at the 
request of M. Vatel. 

The family tradition that Madame Roland was never 
drawn or painted except in profile is the only objection to 
the authenticity of this portrait. M. Sensier believed that 
several copies of it were made by the artist himself, as was 
the custom before the discovery of the daguerreotype, and 
cited as referring to this miniature a letter to Serven, the 
minister of war, friend and comrade of the Rolands. Men- 
tioning the dangers that were closing around her, Madame 
Roland wrote: "Consequently I am sending you my por- 
trait, for one must leave something of one's self to one's 
friends. I am glad to tell you that after my husband, my 
daughter, and another person, it is unknown to the world, 
and the general run of my friends" (December 25, Year i, 
[1792]). The date is significant. This letter was written 
in those dark days after the Rolands had protested against 



346 APPENDIX I 

the September massacres, opposed the violent measures of 
the Mountain, and were "under the knife of Robespierre 
and Marat" — no figurative expression. On the following 
day, the 26th of December, the defense of the King was to 
be heard, and an outbreak of popular fury was predicted. 
Desmoulins and Marat's papers had perseveringly calumni- 
ated Madame Roland, and Danton's proselytes, the furies 
of the Halles, had threatened her with Madame de Lamballe's 
fate; menacing letters were received every day, and she slept 
with a pistol at her pillow. No wonder she desired to leave 
some intact image of herself to her friends. 

M. Sensier's expert knowledge backed by Vatel's re- 
searches, too minute and extended even to enumerate here, 
are convincing. This then is the portrait sent to that 
"other person," that lover so long unknown, whose identity 
puzzled friends and enemies alike, and who was called in 
turn Serven, Barbaroux, and Bancal, until another discovery 
of Messieurs Vatel and Sensier named Buzot as Madame 
Roland's knight. 

What strong things this fragile relic of a stern tragedy 
has outlasted ! Did Buzot wear it on his breast in those 
spring days when the Gironde was at death-grips with the 
Mountain ? Did he carry it as a talisman when he faced 
the threats and curses of the shrieking tribunes, when he 
pressed to his perilous place in the Convention through a 
murderous crowd ? Did the sight, the feel of it spur on his 
crusade against the mob tyranny of Paris ? Was it an un- 
seen auditor of his call to arms in the terrorized provinces ? 
When shocked and saddened he left the council of war after 
Wimpfen, the Gironde's general, had proposed an alliance 
with the royalists, an acceptance of English overtures, did the 
image of "the woman who incarnated the Republic" revive 
the courage of this vanquished republican ? 

The painted bit of glass journeyed with him in that la- 
mentable "retreat of the eleven" through a craven France 
shuddering in the shadow of the guillotine. During long, 
miserable months of hiding in forest and quarry, in freezing 
caves and stifling garrets, the frail fetich lay on Buzot's 
breaking heart, and he parted from it only when he left his 
last refuge, resolved to die a free man. 

Locked in a leaden casket with the fugitive's Memoirs 



APPENDIX I 347 

and letters, the miniature was hastily hidden by the Giron- 
din's hostess just before she was carried off to the guillotine. 
Unearthed by the agents of the Committee of Public Safety, 
it was despatched first to Bordeaux, then on to Paris, where 
it was handed over to Robespierre, after some less incorrupt- 
ible patriot had pried out the jewels from the frame. 

Did it say anything to Robespierre, this image of the 
woman who had not so long before generously offered him a 
refuge when he was "suspect" ? Did he remember a certain 
2 1 St of June as he glanced at the portrait ? The year was 
1791; the King was in flight. Paris was wild with rage and 
suspicion. Robespierre, white and terror-stricken, sat gnaw- 
ing his nails at Petion's, muttering that a Saint Bartholomew 
of patriots had been planned, and that they had not twenty- 
four hours to live. Did he recall the radiant sybil who smiled 
at his fears and predicted the flowering of a republic on the 
ruins of royalty .? Who knows ? Even modem research has 
not yet explored that strange, monstrous mind. 

After Thermidor, Courtois, Robespierre's jackal, hid this 
with other relics. He disinterred them now and then, and 
tossed a few scraps to those he feared or favored. From hand 
to hand the portrait and the papers have been passed on to 
our own generation, and have found a permanent resting- 
place in the Archives. 

There the picture lies to-day, a fragment of sweet color, 
beside the tattered, faded manuscripts about it, like a flower 
fallen among debris, the pathetic, frayed records of the ideals 
and disillusions of honorable and devoted men whose crime 
was a belief in the honor and disinterestedness of their fellow 
men. Could a worthier place be found for the portrait of 
"the soul of the Gironde" ? 



APPENDIX II 

MADAME ROLAND'S STYLE 

Force and frankness of thought — even her enemies have 
never doubted her sincerity — directness of attack, the habit- 
ual use of the exact word, sincerity of expression, and a firm- 
ness of touch which can thrust and pierce as well as indicate. 
This is no manicured style. Intensity of emotion might be 
expected from a woman writing with death at her door, 
and feeling, long concentrated and dwelt upon, which bursts 
forth in bitter irony, in passionate apostrophe, and in furious 
invective. The art of literary expression never had more 
illustrious interpreters than in her time, and clarity, move- 
ment, vivacity, we expect in a writer of her age and country. 
But impassioned conviction, abundance, and amplitude are 
rarer gifts, and these qualities are hers. In spite of our 
prejudices, our doubts, our objections, this vehement, force- 
ful narrative* seizes attention and completely envelops us in 
its atmosphere. While reading it we are Girondins, be we 
what we may when we have cast off its compelling charm, for 
our spirit is held captive in this close net of words. 

We cannot expect impartiality in a woman who pleads 
for husband, lover, and friends, literally under the knife. 
The enemies of her cause are her personal foes; with each 
assault upon it she withers and bleeds. Bitter raillery, 
sustained invective, blighting sarcasm, all the resources of 
the rhetorician directed by a just indignation, are employed 
to scathe and overwhelm the men who a few short months 
ago were guests and house friends, and asked her hospitality, 
sought her counsels, and in some instances owed their posi- 
tion to her influence or recommendation. In a frank and 
ardent nature like Madame Roland's the double-dealing of 
Danton, the hypocrisy of Pache, the cowardice of Fabre, the 
weakness of Lanthenas are as incomprehensible as they are un- 

*The Memoirs. — Ed. 
348 



APPENDIX II 349 

pardonable. She branded these false friends with an inerrant 
hand. Her perspicacity enabled her to strike at the weak 
link in each mail-coat. At bay, alone, hopeless, she does not 
lose her sangfroid, and each thrust is calculated, each blow 
is deftly aimed. Ire serves but to fuse her periods, to incite 
her to greater swiftness and a more direct attack. The no- 
ble serenity with which she met the calumnies that assailed 
her personally broke down when her friends were touched. 
The arrest of the twenty-two Girondists affected her so pro- 
foundly that the concierge resolved never to tell her any more 
political news. She fainted for the first time during her five 
months in prison when she was told of the condemnation of 
the Girondists. She raged when she learned of the moral 
cowardice of the deputies of her own party who dared not 
refuse to march in Marat's funeral procession (July i6). 
Seldom has such exaltation of feeling, such a tumultuous 
temperament, been united with such self-command and 
such cool and deliberate choice of means of expression. 
When she takes up her pen, anger is subdued to righteous 
wrath, the revolt of a pure conscience. The soundness of 
the phrase, of the significant word, of the elegance and ap- 
propriateness of the expression, curbs the violence of emo- 
tion and translates it into lofty invective. 

The declamatory tone which repels us to-day is softened 
by playfulness and wit. Only enough of the Cornelian 
emphasis is retained to fashion her thought in that virile 
form which was personal to her, and which she owed as much 
to the temper of her mind as to the high culture which that 
mind had received since her childhood. Madame Roland 
wrote as she spoke, if we can trust her contemporaries. 



APPENDIX III 
MADAME ROLAND'S VERACITY 

Does this vivacity of imagination deflect her judgment of 
political events ? Does it invalidate her general statements 
of fact ? The ablest historian of the Gironde has answered 
this crucial question. Vatel's opinion is decisive. As an 
eminent lawyer he possessed the judicial habit of thought, 
and was familiar with the nature of evidence. He brought 
the methods of legal procedure to his historical studies. He 
visited the scenes of the events he described, and questioned 
the survivors of the Revolution. He made a valuable col- 
lection of revolutionary relics, and his discoveries in the 
National Archives have been profitable to every recent writer 
on the eighteenth century. Of Madame Roland's Memoirs, 
which he often cites, he wrote: "Note the perfect exactness 
of the details given by Madame Roland. Her assertions have 
been contested by historians, who wrote on the Revolution 
in a spirit hostile to her party. I affirm on the contrary 
that every time I have had occasion to verify the facts ad- 
vanced by Madame Roland, I have discovered material 
proofs in support of what she stated. I shall have the op- 
portunity to return to this subject in the course of this 
publication, and I even propose to write a separate work 
under the title of The Veracity of Madame Roland." 

That party spirit tinged her narrative is as manifest as it 
was inevitable that it should be; she is answering accusa- 
tions, defending her husband, and justifying her own con- 
duct. She is testifying to the rectitude of friends and co- 
workers. Hence we must not expect from her even-handed 
justice to enemies or impartial views of her executioners. 
The opinion of a soldier in the forefront of the battle is 
rarely unbiassed. Even those who write of the Revolution 
to-day still hear the roar of conflict, and perhaps uncon- 
sciously, through temperament or tradition, are partisans of 
the Mountain or the Gironde or the Throne. 

3S0 



APPENDIX III 351 

If she was too ready to believe evil of her political adver- 
saries, she shared this weakness with the noblest characters 
of her time, for never was calumny more rife. There is no 
doubt that she believed every word that she wrote, and there 
is also no doubt that the modern writers, who accuse her of 
untruthfulness, misquote or misread her words. Messrs. 
Belloc, Bax, Stephens bring grave charges against her 
trustworthiness, resting their case on strangely confused 
readings of passages from the Memoirs. As such accusa- 
tions, if proven, would greatly depreciate the value of these 
passages, I may be pardoned for considering these said ac- 
cusations in detail, not only to vindicate the veracity of 
Madame Roland but to demonstrate how partisan is the 
attitude of those who now accuse her of wilful misrepre- 
sentation. 

Mr. Belloc (Robespierre, p. 142) writes: "Madame Roland, 
who had been present at this meeting [at the Jacobin Club 
after the massacre of the Champ de Mars], bethought her- 
self of Robespierre, as she sat at home surrounded by the 
growing terrors of the crisis. She went, or says she went, 
up into the Rue Saintonge in the Marais to offer him asylum 
in her house; but she tells us that when she got to his door, 
somewhat before midnight, he had not yet returned. In 
this she is truthful, though she is wrong in ascribing terror 
to a man who was as ignorant of panic as of valor." In 
a note Mr. Belloc adds: "A little inconsistently, since she 
also says in her 'Memoirs' that, at the same hour, she was 
refusing shelter to Robespierre's early friend Madame Robert, 
on the plea that her house was too well known by Lafayette's 
faction." 

Thus Mr. Belloc, following M. Hamel, who in his older 
Histoire de Robespierre doubts Madame Roland's statement 
because she herself writes in another place that on the 17th of 
July at eleven o'clock at night, when she reached home after 
the massacre, she found M. and Mme. Robert there. Now 
M. Hamel would certainly have convicted Madame Roland of 
falsehood if she had said that she went to Robespierre's house 
on the night of the 17th of July; she gives no date, however, 
but her narrative shows that it was not on the lyth, but some 
days later, since threats against Robespierre and the re- 
port of a plot against him were what induced her to oflPer 



352 APPENDIX III 

him a hiding-place. She could not have heard all these 
rumors the very evening of the massacre. What she wrote 
of Robespierre was this: "Nous nous inquietames veritable- 
ment sur son compte, Roland et moi; nous nous fimes con- 
duire chez lui, au fond du Marais a onze du soir pour lui 
ofFrir un asile; mais il avait deja quitte son domicile." ["We 
were really anxious about him, Roland and I; we went to 
his house, in the heart of the Marais at eleven in the evening 
to offer him a refuge; but he had already left his domicile."] 
(Memoirs, vol. I, pp. 209-210.) Madame Roland not only did 
not date her journey to Robespierre's house on the 17th, she 
did not refuse "to receive Madame Robert, Robespierre's early 
friend," at that hour on that date "on the plea that her house 
was too well known by Lafayette's faction." The Memoirs 
read : "Le 17 juillet, sortant des Jacobins ou j'avais ete temoin 
des agitations que causerent les tristes evenements du Champ 
de Mars, je trouvai, en rentrant chez moi, a onze heures du 
soir, M. et Mme. Robert. 'Nous venons,' me dit la femme 
avec I'air de confiance d'une ancienne amie, 'vous demander 
un asile; il ne faut pas vous avoir beaucoup vue pour croire 
a la franchise de votre caractere et de votre patriotisme: 
mon mari redigeait la petition sur I'autel de la patrie; j'etais 
a ses cotes; nous echappons a la boucherie, sans oser nous 
retirer ni chez nous, ni chez des amis connus oli Ton pourrait 
nous venir chercher.' * Je vous sais bon gre,' lui repliquai-je, 
*d'avoir songe a moi dans une aussi triste circonstance, et 
je m'honore d'accueillir les persecutes; mais vous serez mal 
caches ici (j'etais a I'hotel Britannique, rue Guenegaud); 
cette maison est frequentee, et I'hote est fort partisan de 
Lafayette.' 'II n'est question que de cette nuit, demain 
nous aviserons a notre retraite.' Je fis dire a la maitresse de 
I'hotel qu'une femme de mes parentes arrivant a Paris, dans 
ce moment de tumulte, avait laisse ses bagages a la diligence 
et passerait la nuit avec moi; que je la priais de faire dresser 
deux lits de camp dans mon appartement. lis furent dis- 
poses dans un salon oil se tinrent les hommes, et Mme. 
Robert coucha dans de lit de mon mari aupres du mien dans 
ma chambre." 

["On the 17th of July, after leaving the Jacobin Club, 
where I had been a witness of the agitation caused by the 
unfortunate occurrences of the Champ de Mars, I returned 



APPENDIX III 353 

to my house at eleven o'clock at night, and found M. and 
Mme. Robert there. *We have come,' said the wife with 
the confident air of a former friend, 'to ask you for shelter; 
it is not necessary to have seen you many times to believe 
in the frankness of your character and your patriotism. 
My husband was writing the petition on the altar of the 
Fatherland. I was at his side. We escaped from the 
butchery without daring to go either to our own house or to 
those of people who are known to be our friends, and where 
we may be looked for.' *I am much pleased,' I replied, 
'that you should have thought of me in such trying circum- 
stances, and I honor myself by welcoming the persecuted, 
but you will be poorly hidden here (I was at the Hotel 
Britannique, Rue Guenegaud); the house is much frequented, 
and the landlord is a strong partisan of Lafayette.' 'It is 
only for to-night; to-morrow we shall think about our re- 
treat.' I had the landlady told that a woman, one of my 
relatives, who had just arrived in Paris during the distur- 
bance, had left her baggage in the diligence, and would spend 
the night with me, and that I begged her to have two camp 
beds set up in my apartment. They were put into a salon 
where the men lodged, and Madame Robert slept in my 
husband's bed beside mine in my room."] (Memoirs, vol. I, 
pp. 170, 171.) 

The Roberts not only spent the night with the Rolands, 
they breakfasted and dined with them the following day. 
So much for Madame Roland's refusal to shelter Robespierre's 
friend. 

In Danton, Mr. Belloc, following Michelet, holds Madame 
Roland responsible for the Gironde's rejection of Danton's 
overtures. Michelet's inference is drawn only from a pas- 
sage in the Memoirs. As a noteworthy instance of how docu- 
ments can be misinterpreted, and of the peril of using authori- 
ties at second hand without consulting the originals, I cite 
the text and the subsequent variations on its simple theme. 

Dumouriez after the victory of Valmy returned to Paris. 
He dined with the Rolands, and after dinner proposed going 
to the opera. It was the custom then, as indeed it is now, for 
successful generals to receive ovations in the theatres after 
a campaign; to accompany Dumouriez would have been to 



354 APPENDIX III 

court conspicuousness and, at a moment when the Gironde 
was in power, to share a portion of his honors; therefore 
Madame Roland prudently avoided appearing in his company. 
She writes: 

"II [Dumouriez] se proposait d'aller apres diner a I'Opera; 
c'etait encore un reste de I'ancienne folie des generaux d'aller 
se montrer au spectacle et chercher des couronnes de theatre, 
lorsqu'ils avaient remporte quelque avantage. 

"Une personne me demanda si je ne comptais point y aller; 
j'evitai de repondre, parce qu'il ne convenait ni a mon carac- 
tere ni a mes moeurs d'y paraitre avec Dumouriez. Mais 
apres que la compagnie fut partie, je proposai a Vergniaud 
de m'y accompagner dans ma loge avec ma fille. Nous 
nous y rendimes. L'ouvreuse de loges, etonnee, me dit que 
la loge du ministre etait occupee. *Cela n'est pas possible,' 
lui dis-je. On n'y entrait que sur des billets signes de lui, 
et je n'en avais donne a personne. *Mais c'est lej ministre 
qui a voulu entrer.' — 'Non, ce n'est pas lui; ouvrez-moi, 
je verrai qui c'est.' Trois ou quatre sans-culottes, en forme 
de spadassins, etaient a la porte. 'On n'ouvre pas,' s'ecrie- 
rent-ils, 'le ministre est la.' — 'Je ne puis me dispenser 
d'ouvrir,' repond la femme qui dans I'instant ouvre effective- 
ment la porte. J'aper^ois la grosse figure de Danton, celle 
de Fabre et trois ou quatre femmes de mauvaise tournure. 
Le spectacle etait commence; ils fixaient le theatre; Danton 
s'inclinait sur la loge voisine pour causer avec Dumouriez 
que je reconnus, le tout d'un clin d'oeil, sans que personne 
de la loge m'eCit vue. Je me retirai subitement, en poussant 
la porte. 'Veritablement,' dis-je a l'ouvreuse, 'c'est un 
ci-devant ministre de la justice, a qui j'aime mieux laisser 
le fruit d'une impertinence que de me compromettre avec 
lui; je n'ai que faire ici.' Et je me retirai, jugeant au reste 
que la sottise de Danton me sauvait de I'inconvenient, que 
j'avais voulu eviter, de paraitre avec Dumouriez, puisqu'il 
se serait trouve si pres de moi."] 

["Some one asked me if I did not intend to go. I avoided 
answering because it hardly suited my character or my 
conduct {mceurs) to appear there with Dumouriez. But 
after the company had gone I asked Vergniaud to go with 
me to my box, with my daughter. We went. The box- 
opener, in some surprise, told me the minister's box was 



APPENDIX III 355 

occupied. 'That is not possible,' I said to her. No one 
entered it without a note signed by him, and I had not given 
one to anybody. 'But it was the minister who wished to 
go in.' 'No, it was not he; open the door. I will see who 
it is.' Three or four sansculottes of cut-throat aspect were 
at the door. 'Don't open,' they said, 'the minister is 
there.' 'I can't help opening,' said the woman, who in a 
moment actually opened the door. I saw Danton's broad 
visage, that of Fabre, and three or four disreputable-looking 
women. The performance had begun; they were looking 
at the stage. Danton leaned towards the adjoining box to 
talk with Dumouriez, whom I recognized; all this at a glance 
without any one in the box having seen me. I went out 
quickly, pushing the door to. 'Truly,' I said to the box- 
opener, 'it is a former minister of justice to whom I would 
rather leave the advantage of his impertinence than compro- 
mise myself with him; I have nothing to do here,' and I re- 
tired, thinking, however, that the impertinence of Danton 
had spared me the impropriety, which I wished to avoid, 
of appearing with Dumouriez, since he would have been so 
near me."] (Memoirs, vol. I, pp. 251-2.) 

Nothing could be more simply and clearly told than this 
incident, and yet Michelet whimsically interpreted it thus: 
"Danton connaissait tres bien le caractere difficile des 
Girondins, leur amour-propre inquiet, la severite chagrine 
de Roland, la susceptibilite de Madame Roland, le vertueux 
et delicat orgueil qu'elle pla^ait sur son mari, ne pardonnant 
pas a Danton le mot brutal qu'il avait dit pour rendre 
Roland ridicule. Danton, dans sa bonhommie audacieuse, 
voulut, sans negociation ni explication, briser tout d'abord 
la glace. Menant Dumouriez au theatre, il entra non dans 
la meme loge, mais dans celle d'a cote, d'oix il parlait au 
general. Cette loge etait celle meme du ministre de I'inte- 
rieur, de Roland. Danton, comma ancien collegue, s'y 
etablit familierement avec deux femmes, tres probablement 
sa mere et sa femme (qu'il aimait de passion). Si nous ne 
nous trompons dans cette conjecture, une telle demarche, 
faite en famille, etait un gage de paix. On savait que per- 
sonne n'avait ete plus cruellement atteint que Madame 
Danton par les fatales journees de Septembre; elle devint 
malade et mourut bientot. 



356 APPENDIX III 

"II y avait a parier que les dames se rapprocheraient; 
Madame Roland, si elle fut entree dans la loge, se fut liee 
malgre elle, et elle eut ete touchee. Au reste, que les Roland 
prissent bien ou mal la chose, elle pouvait avoir politiquement 
d'admirables resultats. Tous les journaux allaient dire 
qu'on avait vu, reunies dans une loge de six pieds carres, 
la Montague et la Gironde, qu'il n'y avait plus de partis, 
que toute discorde expirait. Cette seule apparence d'union 
aurait mieux servi la France que le gain d'une bataille. 

" Madame Roland vint, en efFet, et elle fut indisposee tout 
d'abord; on la retint a la porte, lui disant que la loge etait 
occupee; elle se la fit ouvrir, et vit Danton a la place qu'elle 
eut prise, pres du heros de la fete. Elle aimait peu Dumou- 
riez, mais elle ne voulait pas moins, tout porte a le croire, le 
favoriser ce soir-la de son gracieux voisinage, le couronner 
de cette marque solennelle d'une sympathie austere; elle 
seule se croyait digne de le remercier ainsi tacitement au 
nom de la France. 

" Elle avait pris pour venir le bras de Vergniaud, voulant 
sieger entre le grand orateur et le general, apparaissant comme 
alliance du genie et de la victoire, et prenant hardiment sa 
part dans celle-ci pour le parti girondin. Danton derangea 
tout cela. Madame Roland ne se soucia pas de I'avoir pres 
d'elle, entre elle et Dumouriez. Enquoiellefut injuste. . . . 
Quoi qu'il en soit, Madame Roland prit pour pretexte les fem- 
mes. Elle vit, dit-elle, 'deux femmes de mauvaise tournure.' 
Et sans examiner si, malgre cette tournure, elles n'etaient 
point respectables, elle referma la loge, sans entrer, et se 
retira." [" Danton understood perfectly the exacting temper 
of the Girondins, their uneasy self-love, the fretful severity of 
Roland, the susceptibility of Madame Roland, the estimable 
and delicate pride she felt for her husband, which could not 
forgive Danton the brutal speech he had made to render 
Roland ridiculous. Danton, with his audacious good humor, 
desired, without negotiation or explanation, to break the ice at 
once. Taking Dumouriez to the theatre, he went into, not 
the same box, but the one beside it, from which he talked 
with the general. This box was that of the minister of the 
interior, of Roland. Danton, as an old colleague, established 
himself in it familiarly with two women, very probably his 
mother and wife, whom he passionately loved. If we are not 



APPENDIX III 357 

deceived in this conjecture such a step, taken en famille, was a 
pledge of peace. It was known that no one had been more 
cruelly affected than Madame Danton by the fatal days of 
September; she became ill, and died soon afterwards. One 
might have wagered that the ladies would have become 
acquainted; Madame Roland, if she had entered the box, 
would have felt bound in spite of herself, and would have 
been touched. Besides, whether the Rolands took the 
thing well or ill, it might have admirable results. All the 
papers would say that they had seen the Mountain and the 
Gironde reunited in a box six feet square, that there were 
no more parties, and all discord had vanished. The mere 
semblance of union would have served France better than a 
battle won. 

"Madame Roland did come, and was averse from the first. 
They kept her at the door, saying the box was occupied; 
she had it opened and saw Danton in the place she would 
have taken, near the hero of the fete. She had little love 
for Dumouriez, but everything disposes one to believe that in 
spite of that she wished to favor him that evening with a 
gracious neighborliness, and crown him with this formal 
token of an austere sympathy. She alone believed herself 
worthy thus to thank him tacitly in the name of France. 

"She had taken the arm of Vergniaud to come, desiring 
to sit between the great orator and the general, appearing as the 
alliance of genius and victory, boldly taking her share in it 
for the Girondin party. Danton upset all that. Madame 
Roland did not care to have him near her, between her and 
Dumouriez. In which she was unjust. . . . However that 
may be, Madame Roland made the women a pretext. She 
saw, she said, 'two disreputable-looking women,' and without 
examining whether in spite of their appearance they were not 
respectable, she shut the box without entering it and re- 
tired."] 

Michelet's view of Madame Roland's motives in this con- 
tingency is decidedly deflected, but Mr. Belloc's version is 
still more awry: "Michelet gives us two pictures. ... In 
the first Dumouriez and Danton sat in the same box at the 
theatre, and Vergniaud was coming in with the soul of the 
Girondins. The door opened and promised this spectacle: 
Danton and the general and the orator of the pure Republi- 



358 APPENDIX III 

cans, and the woman most identified with the Right. It 
would have been such a picture for all the people there as 
Danton would have prayed or paid for. The door was ajar, 
and as she came near, Madame Roland saw Danton sitting in 
the box; she put out her hand from Fergniaud's arm and shut 
the door. There is in her Memoirs a kind of apology 'des 
femmes de mauvaise tournure' — utter nonsense; it was Ro- 
land's box, and his wife was expected. Danton and Du- 
mouriez were not of the gutter. No, it was the narrow, femi- 
nine hatred, so closely allied to her intense devotion, that 
made Madame Roland thrust Danton at arm's length." 
(Danton, pp. 195-6.) 

The story told by Madame Roland as an example of how 
Danton and Fabre attached themselves to Dumouriez after 
Valmy, and tried to share the general's popularity, has 
grown into an incident of tragic significance. The Gironde, 
personified by Madame Roland, rejects an alliance with the 
Mountain ! The hand that closed an opera-box door dealt 
a death-blow to the Girondins ! Seen through the mists of 
"psychical" interpretation Madame Roland looks like a kind 
of Thais firing another Troy. An utterly commonplace 
event thus distorted by excess of imagination looms gigantic. 
Michelet's already heightened picture rises in key under Mr. 
Belloc's touch. Dumouriez and Danton are now sitting in 
the same box. This is a curious misstatement of Danton's 
biographer, for in his defense before the Revolutionary 
Tribunal Danton protested that he had sat in the theatre- 
box next to that of Dumouriez, not in one with the treacher- 
ous soldier. Mr. Belloc's memory is at least impartially 
unreliable. Dumouriez and Danton then are expecting 
Madame^Roland with Vergniaud; they have therefore left the 
door ajar. As for the "three or four disreputable-looking 
women" of the Memoirs — a stroke of Mr. Belloc's pen 
and they vanish into nothingness. Under Michelet's magic 
they had merely shrunk to two, but by being transformed 
into an adored wife and an aged mother, they had gained in 
quality what they lost in quantity. Mr. Belloc, however, 
will have none of them, and by his suppression of them 
renders Madame Roland's conduct inexplicable. True, he 
substitutes his own arbitrary interpretation — a sudden fit of 
"narrow feminine hatred"; her own explanation is _"utter 



APPENDIX III 359 

nonsense." "Danton and Dumouriez were not of the gut- 
ter." Danton's language was much of the time, and it was 
from his own remarks that his contemporaries formed their 
poor opinion of his mceurs, while Dumouriez was a notoriously 
loose liver. That Madame Roland, unaccompanied by her 
husband, should hesitate to appear in public with such men 
and their doubtful-looking companions, and should quietly 
retire before they had seen her, seems to the unbiassed the 
easiest way of avoiding an awkward situation. To impute to 
this unobserved exit the failure of the Mountain and the 
Gironde to unite is to write history as a seer, not as an in- 
vestigator. Michelet, who loved not Madame Roland less 
but Danton more, persuaded himself that this rather impu- 
dent invasion of the opera-box was intended as an overture 
of peace. A curious olive-branch surely, calculated to pro- 
pitiate a proud and polished woman whom he had publicly 
attacked in the Convention some two weeks before ! Far 
from being conciliatory, his usurpation of her place was an 
impertinence which Madame Roland showed political wis- 
dom in ignoring. Instead of being a display of temper, as 
Mr. Belloc would have us believe, her conduct was an exhi- 
bition of tact and self-control. The affair was just what she 
represents it: Danton desired to share the laurels of Valmy 
with Dumouriez, the Gironde's general; he therefore fol- 
lowed him about from one public place to another. The 
Rolands' box was next to that occupied by Dumouriez, 
and Danton appropriated it, regardless of the rights and sus- 
ceptibilities of its proprietors. Even Danton could not have 
fancied that he would be persona grata to those he had so 
recently affronted. The anecdote is a curious instance of 
what party spirit can read between the lines of a document. 
Not only is Mr. Belloc's personal interpretation of text 
puzzling to an inquiring reader, but believing, no doubt, that 
consistency is the vice of little minds, he further bewilders 
us by his frequent and unexplained changes of opinion, and 
by his optimistic reliance on a memory that may not be 
marble to receive but certainly proves wax to retain. While 
pronouncing Madame Roland "truthful and enthusiastic" in 
an appendix (Danton, p. 343), he accuses her of malicious 
falsehood in a note {ibid., pp. 185-6). It is generally in notes 
that Madame Roland receives correction from Mr. Belloc. 



36o APPENDIX III 

He is sometimes lenient to her in his text, but his second 
thoughts, as represented by his annotations, are marked by 
an increase of severity. In large type he is almost a Girondin, 
in small type nearly a Terrorist. 

Mr. Belloc also possesses a mysterious touchstone to de- 
termine the historic value of certain statements in the Mem- 
oirs and the worthlessness of others. To the student this 
occult process and the conclusions derived from it are equally 
mystifying. Take, for instance, two pages of the Memoirs 
relating to Danton's conduct during the carnage of Sep- 
tember. Why should we accept one and doubt the other 
with Mr. Belloc ? What evidence, external or internal, is 
there that one is veracious and the other a fabrication .? 
"Je me souviens [writes Mme. Roland of these butcheries], 
a propos de ceux-ci, d'un fait assez precieux. Grandpre, 
nomme par le ministre de ITnterieur pour visiter les prisons, 
avait trouve leurs tristes habitants dans le plus grand efFroi 
dans la matinee du 2 septembre; il avait fait beaucoup de 
demarches pour faciliter la sortie de plusieurs de ceux-ci 
et il avait reussi pour un assez bon nombre; mais les bruits 
qui s'etaient repandus tenaient ceux qui restaient dans la 
plus grande perplexite. G. P. (Grandpre) de retour a i'hotel, 
attend les ministres a la sortie du Conseil; Danton parait le 
premier, il I'approche, lui parle de ce qu'il a vu, retrace les 
demarches, les requisitions faites a la force armee par le 
ministre de ITnterieur, le peu d'egards qu'on semble y avoir, 
les alarmes des detenus et les soins que lui, ministre de la 
Justice, devait prendre pour eux. Danton, importune de la 
representation malencontreuse, s'ecrie, avec sa voix beuglante 
et un geste approprie a I'expression: *Je me f — bien des 
prisonniers ! Qu'ils deviennent ce qu'ils pourront!* Et 
il passe son chemin avec humeur. C'etait dans le second 
antichambre, en presence de vingt personnes qui fremirent 
d'entendre un si rude ministre de la Justice." ['T remember 
a rather noteworthy incident. Grandpre, named by the 
Minister of the Interior to visit the prisons, had found their 
miserable inmates in the greatest alarm on the morning of 
the 2d of September. He had already taken many steps to 
facilitate the release of many of them, and he had succeeded 
in many instances, but reports were spreading that threw 
those who remained into the greatest perplexity. Grandpre, 



APPENDIX III 361 

on his return to the hotel (the ministry), waited for the min- 
isters to leave the council; Danton was the first who ap- 
peared; he (Grandpre) went to him, told him what he had 
seen, described the steps he had himself taken, the appeals 
for an armed force made by the Minister of the Interior, 
the slight attention that had been paid to them, the alarm 
of the prisoners, and the care that he (Danton), Minister of 
Justice, owed them. Danton, importuned by this ill-timed 
suggestion, cried in his bellowing tone, and with a gesture 
appropriate to the expression: 'Damn the prisoners! Let 
what may befall them.' And he went on his way in a tem- 
per. This was in the second antechamber, in the presence 
of twenty people, who shuddered to hear so brutal a Minister 
of Justice."] (Memoirs, vol. I, pp. 216-217.) 

This anecdote Mr. Belloc admits may be authentic, but 
the following story, according to him, is an instance, the 
unique one he cites by the way, of "historical intuition." 
On the 2d of September, at five o'clock, while the prisons 
were being surrounded, two hundred men arrived at Ro- 
land's house and clamored for the minister and for fire- 
arms. Madame Roland succeeded in sending them away 
quietly by assuring them there were no arms in the house, 
and that they would find Roland at the Hotel de la Marine. 
"Que faisait alors Danton.'' Je ne I'ai su que plusieurs 
jours apres, mais c'est bon a dire ici pour rapprocher les 
fairs. II etait a la Mairie, dans le comite dit de surveil- 
lance d'oii sortait I'ordre des arrestations si multipliees 
depuis quelques jours: il venait d'y embrasser Marat, apres 
la parade d'une feinte brouillerie de vingt-quatre heures. 
II monte chez Petion, le prend en particulier, lui dit dans son 
langage toujours releve d'expressions energiques: 'Savez- 
vous de quoi ils se sont avises ? Est-ce qu'ils n'ont pas lance 
un mandat d'arret contre Roland?' — 'Qui cela?' demande 
Petion. — 'Eh! cet enrage comite. J'ai pris le mandat; 
tenez, le voila; nous ne pouvons laisser agir ainsi. Diable ! 
contre un membre du Conseil!' Petion prend le mandat, 
le lit, le lui rend en souriant, et dit: 'Laissez faire, ce sera 
d'un bon efFet.' 'D'un bon efFet!' replique Danton, qui 
examinait curieusement le maire; *oh! je ne soufFrirai pas 
cela, je vais les mettre a la raison' et le mandat ne fut pas 
mis a execution. Mais qui est-ce qui ne se dit pas que les 



362 APPENDIX III 

deux cents hommes devaient avoir ete envoyes chez le 
ministre de I'lnterieur par les auteurs du mandat ? Qui 
est-ce qui ne soup9onne point que I'inutilite de leur tentative, 
apportant du retard a I'execution du projet, put faire ba- 
lancer ceux qui I'avaient con^u ? Qui est-ce qui ne voit pas 
dans la demarche de Danton aupres du maire celle d'un 
conjure qui veut pressentir TefFet du coup, ou se faire hon- 
neur de I'avoir pare lorsqu'il se trouve manque d'ailleurs ou 
rendu douteux par d'involontaires delais?" ["What was 
Danton doing in the meantime ? He was at the Mairie (then 
in the Cite, cour du Palais), at the Committee of Surveillance 
whence came those orders for arrests so numerous during 
the last few days. He had just fallen on the neck of Marat 
after a sham quarrel of twenty-four hours. He went up- 
stairs to Petion's rooms, took him aside, and said to him in 
his peculiar language, always heightened by energetic ex- 
pressions: 'Do you know what they have decided to do? 
If they haven't launched an order for arresting Roland!' 
'Who did that.?' asks Petion. 'Why, that mad committee. 
I took the order; here it is; we can't let them act thus. The 
devil ! And against a member of the Council too !' Petion 
took the order, read it, returned it to him smiling, and said: 
'Let it go, it will have a good effect.' 'A good effect,' re- 
plied Danton, who was looking curiously at the Mayor 
(Petion). *0h, I shall not allow it. I shall bring them to 
reason,' and the order was not executed. But who would 
not say to himself that the two hundred men must have 
been sent to the Minister of the Interior by the authors of 
the order .? Who would not suspect that the failure of their 
attempt, in retarding the execution of the project, had made 
those who conceived it hesitate ? Who would not see in 
Danton's conduct with the Mayor that of a confederate who 
tries to foresee the effect of a blow, or to claim the honor of 
parrying it when it has failed or seems unsuccessful through 
involuntary delay?"] (Memoirs, vol. I, p. 104.) 

Mr. Belloc apparently had these citations in mind when, 
referring to Danton's violent hatred and disgust for the 
Royalists, he says: "There is something of that deplorable 
temper in the anecdote which Madame Roland gives of him, 
striding through the rooms on the second day, and saying 
'that the prisoners could save themselves.' But this anec- 



APPENDIX III 363 

dote is not history; it is an accusation, and one made by an 
enemy." To this passage Mr. Belloc affixes the following 
note: 

"Madame Roland had the great gift of historical intui- 
tion, that is, she could minutely describe events that never 
took place. / attach no kind of importance to the passage 
immediately preceding. If Danton and Petion were alone, as 
she describes them, her picture is the picture of a novelist. 
The phrase quoted above may be authentic; there were 
witnesses." 

It is unfortunate for his readers that Danton's panegyrist 
has profited so little by a study of his hero's clear and vigorous 
style. Mr. Belloc's utterances are often obscure, occasion- 
ally cryptic. Does he in the paragraph just cited mean 
that the story of Danton's reply to Grandpre's plea may be 
true, but that the account of the interview between Danton 
and Petion is an invention ? The context seems to imply 
this, but how incomprehensible to any one unfamiliar with 
the Memoirs are these veiled and mysterious allusions to 
them. Mr. Belloc never quotes Madame Roland's own words; 
he does not cite the original Memoirs, though he sometimes 
borrows from them a clean-cut phrase or two to clarify his 
own descriptions. Does he mean the Danton-Petion dia- 
logue when he writes that he "attaches no importance to 
the passage immediately preceding" ^ Preceding what.? In 
Madame Roland's pages the conversation between Danton 
and Petion does not precede the anecdote of Danton and 
Grandpre; on the contrary, it follows the Grandpre episode. 
Madame Roland wrote both these scenes twice (fearing some 
of her manuscript had been destroyed), and twice in the same 
order which Mr. Belloc has inverted, to the bewilderment of 
his readers. Does he offer any proof of his conviction that 
"if Danton and Petion were alone, her picture is the picture 
of a novelist" ? There were witnesses to Grandpre's repulse; 
"therefore it may be true." But both Petion and Danton 
were living when Madame Roland was writing, and the 
former was an intimate friend of the Rolands; she adds that 
she did not know of the projected arrest until some days 
later, probably when Petion had time to tell her of it. Why 
iS it calumnious to write that Danton desired Roland's 
arrest on the 2d of September when all the world knows that 



364 APPENDIX III 

he attacked Roland and his wife in the Convention on the 
25th of the same month ? 

M. Perroud, the latest and most learned editor of the 
Roland Memoirs, has also written a note on this interview. 
It reads as follows: "Z,^ Mandat d* arret lance contre Roland, 
ministre de I'Interieur, par la Commune de Paris et dechire 
■par Danton, est atteste par tous les temoignages du temps." 
(Memoires de Madame Roland, vol. I, p. 32.) 

Madame Roland has been arraigned by the apologist of 
Marat as well as by the historian of Danton. Mr. E. Belfort 
Bax, the Socialist writer, in his preface to Marat, the People's 
Friend, rejoices that the malignant fabrications of Bar- 
baroux and Madame Roland have been sufficiently exposed, 
"though their clumsiness and absurdity are such as to render 
this almost superfluous." Mr. Bax, whose command of 
invective is extensive, and probably increased by study of 
the style of I'Ami du Peuple, gives no examples of these 
exposures, and but one of what he terms "the malicious lies" 
of Madame Roland. "The representation of Marat as a 
hideous ogre, conducting ladies by the hand into costly 
furnished apartments, with blue-and-white damask sofas, 
elegant draperies, superb porcelain vases, is too absurdly in 
contradiction with well-known facts to have been worth the 
making. . . . Madame Roland, be it observed, took care to 
wait till long after Marat's death before putting forward the 
slanders, professing to deal with events which, had they really 
happened, she must have known months before, and which 
had she known, she would assuredly have been the first to 
publish at a time when the battle between 'Mountain' and 
'Gironde* was at its height." (Marat, pp. 190-1.) 

This calumny, too absurd for refutation, according to 
Marat's apologist, is found in the Memoirs (vol. I, pp. 320-1). 
"Ici j'entends citer Marat, chez qui les papiers publics 
annoncent qu'on a trouve a sa mort un seul assignat de 25 
sols: quelle edifiante pauvrete I Voyons done son logement; 
c'est Madame Montane qui va le decrire. Son mari, presi- 
dent du tribunal revolutionnaire, est detenu a la Force, pour 
n'avoir pas prononce la confiscation des biens des victimes 
d'Orleans. Elle a ete mise a Sainte-Pelagie par mesure de 
surete, gst-il dit, mais probablement parce qu'on aura craint 



APPENDIX III 36s 

les sollicitations actives de cette petite femme du Midi. Nee 
a Toulouse, elle a toute la vivacite du climat ardent sous 
lequel elle a vu le jour; cousine germaine de Bonnecarrere et 
tendrement attachee a ce parent d'aimable figure, elle fut 
desolee de son arrestation, faite il y a quelques mois. Elle 
s'etait donne beaucoup de peines inutiles, et ne savait plus 
a qui s'adresser lorsqu'elle imagine d'aller trouver Marat. 
Elle se fait annoncer chez lui: on dit qu'il n'y est pas; mais 
il entend la voix d'une femme et se presente lui-meme: 
il avait aux jambes des bottes sans bas, portait une vieille 
culotte de peau, une veste de taffetas blanc; sa chemise 
crasseuse et ouverte laissait voir une poitrine jaunissante; 
des ongles longs et sales se dessinaient au bout de ses doigts, 
et son affreuse figure accompagnait parfaitement ce costume 
bizarre. II prend la main de la dame, la conduit dans un 
salon tres frais, meuble en damas bleu et blanc, decore de 
rideaux de soie elegamment releves en draperies, d'un lustre 
brillant et de superbes vases de porcelaine remplis de fleurs 
naturelles, alors rares et de haut prix; il s'assied a cote d'elle 
sur une ottomane voluptueuse, ecoute le recit qu'elle veut 
lui faire, s'interesse a elle, lui baise la main, serre un peu ses 
genoux, et lui promet la liberte de son cousin. . . . Le soir 
meme Marat fut au comite, et Bonnecarrere sortit de 
I'Abbaye le lendemain; mais dans les vingt-quatre heures 
I'Ami du peuple ecrivit au president Montane, en lui 
envoyant un sujet auquel il s'agissait de rendre un service 
qu'il fallut bien ne pas refuser." 

["Here I propose to cite Marat: the newspapers say that 
only one assignat of twenty-five sols was found in his house 
after his death. What edifying poverty! Let us see his 
lodgings then; Madame Montane will describe them. Her 
husband, president of the Revolutionary Tribunal, is con- 
fined at La Force for not having decreed the confiscation of 
the property of the victims of Orleans. Born in Toulouse, 
she has all the vivacity of her warm native climate; she is a 
cousin of Bonnecarrere [a factotum of Dumouriez, imprisoned 
after the general's defection] and tenderly attached to this 
handsome relative; she was in despair over his arrest several 
months ago. She took much useless trouble and did not 
know to whom to apply, when she thought of going to Marat. 
She gives her name at his house; she is told he is not in; 



366 APPENDIX III 

he hears a woman's voice, and appears; he had boots on, but 
no stockings, old buckskin breeches, and a white taffeta 
waistcoat; his soiled shirt was open, showing his yellowish 
breast; his finger-ends showed long and dirty nails; his 
frightful face perfectly suited this bizarre costume. He took 
the lady by the hand, led her into a very dainty saloriy 
furnished in blue-and-white damask, decorated with silk 
hangings elegantly draped, with a brilliant chandelier, and 
superb china vases filled with natural flowers, then rare and 
costly [this was during the first week in April, 1793I. He 
sat down beside her on a luxurious sofa, listened to her story, 
became interested in her, kissed her hand, clasped her knee, 
and promised her the cousin's freedom. . . . That same 
evening Marat was at the comite {de surete generate], and 
Bonnecarrere left the Abbaye prison the next morning; but 
within twenty-four hours the Friend of the People wrote to 
President Montane, sending him a person in need of a service 
which there was no way of refusing."] 

There have been worse tales told of Marat than that he 
spared a man who was "suspect" at the prayer of a pretty 
woman, and the sanguinary "Friend of the People" generally 
appears in a less attractive milieu than a dainty blue-and- 
white drawing-room. But Marat surprised in flagrante delicto 
of mercy rouses less indignation in his biographer than the 
picture of Marat the ascetic sitting on a damask couch, 
Marat the austere kissing a woman's hand or smelling 
a rose. A Marat galant and elegant! Truly a grotesque 
misrepresentation. 

Is it possible that Mr. Bax has not read the list of Marat's 
possessions made by the officers of the law when the seals 
were placed on them ? Does not this proces verbal {Greffe de 
la justice de paix du Vie. arrondissement) confirm Madame 
Montana's description ? Has not Mr. Bax forgotten the 
pictures of Hauer, of Garnerey, and of PfFeifer, all of them so 
many more proofs not only that Marat possessed a neat 
little salon but that Madame Roland's accuracy is more im- 
peccable than that of her censor ? Would not a comparison 
of dates have shown Mr. Bax that one of several obvious 
reasons why Madame Roland did not "put forward these slan- 
ders" during the battle between the Gironde and the Moun- 
tain was that she did not hear them until after Marat's 



APPENDIX III 367 

death (July 13th), and when the struggle had ended in the 
defeat of her party and her own imprisonment ? It was after 
the 30th of July, 1793, that Madame Montane became an 
inmate of Sainte-Pelagie, where Madame Roland was con- 
fined. President Montane had been deprived of his office on 
that date, and sent to La Force for having lacked "energy" 
in two trials. Mr. Bax surely remembers the first one — 
that of Charlotte Corday on the 17th of July — in which 
Montane showed a culpable consideration for the accused. 
It was, therefore, two weeks at least after Marat's death 
that Montana's wife told her story to Madame Roland. 

Mr. Morse Stephens is apparently possessed of a secret 
fund of information regarding Madame Roland. He tells 
us that "from her very childhood she declares that she had 
been possessed by a longing for social equality, and had been 
disgusted when but a mere child that the ladies of the court 
should be able to dress so well." (The French Revolution, 
vol. II, pp. 15-16.) This extraordinary statement of Mr. 
Stephens's is unsupported by any known authority. Dau- 
ban's edition of the Memoirs, his admirable Etude and the 
Lettres aux Demoiselles Cannet, the only works cited by 
Mr. Stephens, do not contain a sentence that the most 
prejudiced could distort into such an absurdity. Per- 
haps this curious paragraph is intended for pleasantry; it 
cannot be taken seriously. Dress seems to stimulate Mr. 
Stephens's peculiar humor, for he further remarks in seem- 
ing facetiousness that the government ministered to Marie 
Antoinette's passion for it while she was confined in the 
Temple ! Madame Roland is constantly made the subject 
either of his strange playfulness or of his violent prejudice 
against her opinions and her party. His references to her 
are almost invariably accompanied by reckless misstate- 
ments, which it would appear almost puerile to confute did 
they not form part of a history which possesses a certain 
value for the English student of the Revolution. It seems 
idle to refute such baseless assertions as that the preparations 
for the rising of the loth of August were "openly discussed 
in Madame Roland's salon," or that Buzot deserted his wife 
for her, or that she was disgusted with the Queen "because 
she had not yet departed out of the way to make room for 



368 APPENDIX III 

the social equality which would leave Madame Roland as 
the leader of society." Mr. Stephens's aversion for the 
Girondin lady so impairs his accuracy that he is unable to 
write even her name correctly. From unknown authorities 
Mr. Stephens learned that Madame Roland "hated the Queen 
with a personal hatred, and treated her with a want of respect 
and brutality of language which she must have repented 
bitterly when she needed pity herself." Where and when .? 
Madame Roland never met Marie Antoinette; she never men- 
tions having seen her. There is nothing personal in her 
attitude towards the Queen. The republican suspected the 
sovereign's sincerity, and wisely; the patriot feared the 
Austrian woman's treachery to France, wisely again; and 
the wife of a minister who believed the King disposed to 
favor reforms and adopt the Constitution dreaded the in- 
fluence of Marie Antoinette, who was arrogant and med- 
dlesome, frivolous and arbitrary. Nothing that Madame 
Roland wrote of the Queen is as severe as the judgments of 
her own mother and brother, of Maria Theresia and Joseph 
II. A phrase in Madame Roland's last letter to Robespierre 
is supposed to refer toMarie Antoinette: "lafemme orgueilleuse 
ou legere qui maudit Vegalite" ; the letter, however, was never 
sent. Of course, after the publication of the Arneth letters, 
the perjuries of the King and Queen, their treachery to their 
people, and their willingness to dismember France, suspected 
after the opening of "the armoire de fer," have become his- 
toric certainties, and modern historians cannot show the 
Queen the indulgence of those who wrote before i860. 

Mr. Stephens may be as inexact when he studies Madame 
Roland as when for a contrast to her enthusiasm and ambi- 
tion he describes Lucille Desmoulins as "a gentle woman with 
a horror of riots and bloodshed." Coquettish, winning, 
feather-headed Lucille, if we may trust her biographer, M. 
Claretie, was as violent as her husband of the sinister name — 
"le procureur de la lanterne." Possibly Mr. Stephens has 
confused the opinions of the two ladies. It was the "wo- 
manly" Madame Desmoulins who proposed burning Marie 
Antoinette alive on a funeral pyre (Camille Desmoulins, p. 
254), and who laughed over Camille's calumnies with the 
Jacobins enrages, her husband's friends. 



APPENDIX IV 
CHARACTER OF THE ASSEMBLY 

In her visits to the Assembly Manon saw nothing to re- 
verse the judgments formed in the solitude of Le Clos. If 
she had visited the scenes of her girlhood and noted with 
some complacency that neither wider ambitions nor house- 
hold cares had dried up the wells of her heart, it was in a 
critical mood that she went for the first time to the Assem- 
bly, "which has done so many things or at least invested 
with the character of the law all that was really done by 
the force of circumstances and that of public opinion." 

"If I had not been a patriot [i. e., Revolutionist] I should 
have become one watching its sittings, so evident was the 
bad faith of the Noirs [Royalists]," she wrote Bancal (March 
7, 1791). The principal deputies were rapidly and discrimi- 
natingly reviewed and labelled, each one with a descriptive 
adjective. She heard the seductive Lameths, who did not 
seduce her, though they might deceive the ignorant, who are 
as susceptible to flattery as are imbecile persons. She was 
less amused by the wit of Maury, who could speak for two 
hours without losing a moment or uttering a single truth. 
Cazales's eloquence amazed her, and after the death of Mira- 
beau she considered him the first French orator. Mirabeau 
was the only man of the Revolution whose genius could 
impulser an Assembly. He was great by his gifts, small by 
his vices, but always superior to the herd, and always its 
master when he deigned to take the trouble to command it. 
He died just in time for his fame and for liberty. "Events 
have brought me to regret him more. A man of his strength 
was needed as a counterpoise to the action of a crowd of 
curs." 

Manon noticed that the popular "notions" of Barnave 
contained more adjectives than reasons, more pathos than 
grandeur, and found their author a small person "cold as a 
squash fricasseed in snow." 

On the whole, Manon's judgment was severe; the Assembly 

369 



370 APPENDIX IV 

was making patchwork, no reform was carried through, 
questions of finance, the most important of all, were ad- 
journed, a thousand matters were brought to the Assembly 
that should have been settled elsewhere, which hindered its 
proceedings and delayed more important decisions. 

All of which was true, but were not Manon and her party 
somewhat to blame for this stay of proceedings? When she 
recommended good patriots to watch the Assembly, the 
clubs to admonish it, thinking people to write and furnish 
it with questions, considerations, suggestions for decrees 
and projects of reform, she was clogging the wheels of its 
advance and effectually preventing continuity of action. 
The Assembly was then the authority in France, and it was 
at once legislative and executive, and people brought their 
troubles and perplexities to it as they once carried them to 
Saint Louis sitting beneath his tree. The Manege where 
the Assembly met was the theatre of many scenes, puerile, 
touching, and sometimes noble, living testimonies of the faith 
of the people in the advent of justice. 

Manon had no illusions about the Revolutionists, the 
Left of the Assembly. "I saw with vexation on the side 
of the 'Noirs' the kind of superiority conferred in such as- 
semblies by the habit of appearing in public — by purity 
of language and by distinction of manners. But forceful 
reason, the courage of uprightness, the enlightenment of 
philosophy, the learning of the study and the ease acquired 
at the Bar should insure the triumph of the patriots." The 
Left were all of them pure and " could they remain united! ..." 
Madame Roland's keen insight detected at once the fatal 
weakness of the new party — its lack of unity. 

She soon, however, had no reason to complain of the want 
of noble and facile eloquence and elegance of expression in 
her own party: the golden periods of Vergniaud, the terse, 
ardent sentences of Buzot, the trenchant satire of Gensonne, 
the sparkling sallies of Ducos, of Guadet, made of the Gironde 
the party of wits and orators. 



APPENDIX V 
THE GIRONDINS 

Liberty was a religion — hence its intolerance, its sectarian 
hatreds, its cruel bigotry; hence also its devotion, its faith 
which worked miracles, its irresistible force; hence its hy- 
pocrisies, its cant, and its TartufFes. 

But the crimes done in the name of religion we forgive 
more easily than those committed in the name of liberty. 
Reason as well as reverence is outraged by these. "Let 
this be a sign that you love one another" was not more 
violated by the young church than was the dictum of the 
Revolution, "One man's liberty ends where another's be- 
gins," by the Terrorists. 

In the freezing caves of Saint Emilion, in the stifling garret 
and dark hiding-places, infected prison cells, none of the 
Girondins ever doubted the righteousness of their cause, the 
perfection of their ideal. They died in the faith. It was not 
the Republic that was at fault, it was men who were un- 
worthy of it, incapable of rising to the moral height it de- 
mands. The vision of perfect government remained un- 
dimmed in the imagination of its devotees; their failure to 
realize it in no wise impaired their convictions. It was al- 
ways the perfect commonwealth, and when conquered and 
disillusioned the sanctuary they sought was a sister repub- 
lic, that of the United States. It was towards America that 
thej discouraged deputies turned after Wimpfen's defeat, to 
an America which they had learned to love and perhaps to 
idealize from Brissot's eulogies and the enthusiasm inspired 
by the companions of Lafayette. 

All of them men of culture, of trained minds, they were 
fervent disciples of the philosophy of the eighteenth century. 
They believed in the authority of reason, the return to nature, 
in human fraternity. Liberty, equality, were not then 
terms that had been dragged in the mud, mouthed by vulgar 
demagogues, invoked by envy and license. No crimes had 

371 



372 APPENDIX V 

yet been committed in their names; they were still virgins, 
kindling a vestal flame in generous hearts. 

Liberty, like patrie, was a being, a yearning to be incarnated 
by desire and will. It was a practical reality as well: the 
protection of the individual, the emancipation of mind and 
conscience, the abolition of the rules of serfdom on feudal 
soil. Equality implied the suppression of caste privileges, 
the uniform levy of taxes, the admission of all classes to all 
public functions, the parity of all before the law — the Law 
to which Liberty itself is subject. 

In "I' Amour de la Liberie, c'est-d-dire de la regie suivant 
la nature des choses humaines" the Girondins took issue in 
their faith in a disciplined liberty with the Mountain, who 
believed theoretically in unrestrained individual liberty or 
individualism. 

It was because the Mountain did believe theoretically only 
in unlimited liberty and practised obsolete tyranny that it 
overcame adversaries who acted in good faith and whose 
general attitude conformed to their principles. The Giron- 
dins considered interests of humanity and not the interests 
of the moment. Their objective attitude — this putting the 
greater issue above the smaller issue — sent them unarmed to 
death, but made them live again in the minds of those "who 
like them would see a Republic founded on justice." 

The honor of the Girondins, their rehabilitation, was what 
preoccupied them. Life they expected to sacrifice; no real 
Revolutionist rated that highly; but to restore their good 
name, to justify themselves in the eyes of their constituents, 
of their countrymen, this they counted a sacred duty, and 
for this they unfalteringly endured cold and hunger and 
darkness and fear. The hope of justification kept them alive. 

What distinguishes strategically the group of the Girondins 
from their adversaries was that in them the personal indi- 
viduality prevalent to-day found larger manifestation than in 
the Mountain. The Girondins were all too equally matched 
in ability. They could not act together, because they had 
pushed individual expansion to the point where it hinders 
social development. With many personal virtues, the 
Gironde lacked social virtue. A coalition of many intelli- 



APPENDIX V 373 

gences will never possess the working power of a faction 
dominated by a single mind. When there are too many 
superior minds they cease to be superior. The eminence of 
one will necessarily limit the eminence of his fellow. All 
possess value, but the value is not mobilized. Spain with 
her glut of Indian gold was not more impoverished through 
excess of treasure than was the Gironde with her plethora of 
golden mouths. 

Had the Gironde possessed but one orator instead of many, 
one writer instead of a legion, a unique genius would have 
become a mouthpiece for the whole party and would have 
unified its thought and its suffrages in one eloquent utterance. 
In such a republic of talent the evenly endowed mass of 
individuals struggle for personal existence one against 
another. Vergniaud found as many critics as admirers in 
his own party. The Mountain, composed largely of men 
lacking in eloquence and literary culture, found its paucity 
of genius a source of strength over its brilliant adversary. 
An aristo'cracy of intellect that is not an oligarchy exhausts 
itself in vain emulations. 

Madame Roland shared "the crime of the Girondins, which 
was to have believed that all parts of French territory were 
equally penetrated by the new spirit" (Quinet). France 
cannot forgive them for overestimating her. But does any 
people ever become worthy of liberty until it is acquired .? 
Is it not the exercise of it which renders them worthy of their 
possession of it ? 

The optimism of naturally virtuous natures is too often 
the stumbling-block to the reforms which they would estab- 
lish. The existence of evil and of evil natures must be fully 
recognized and taken into account, and the formidable power 
of ignorance. It is not enough to oppose the true to the 
false. Visions are deflected and do not recognize the majesty 
of truth. And a mental assent may be given to what is no 
bridle to desire, no curb to appetite, to what has no appre- 
ciable effect on conduct. 

Liberty, in its very nature, is bound to be merciful. It 
cannot employ the resources of tyranny; hence its apparent 
and often real weakness; it cannot " contrains-les d'entrer." 



374 APPENDIX V 

The Girondin distrust of the Constitutionalists was justi- 
fied by events. Their belief in the people, in the virtuous- 
ness of poverty, in the sanctity of the simple life, their lack 
of knowledge of the world and somewhat naive distrust of 
their social superiors, were natural enough when we consider 
the humiliations to which they had been exposed. Their 
mental culture was far superior to their social culture. 
Enthusiasm, generosity, a lofty ideal, ardent imagination, 
the artist's nature rather than the politician's inspired them; 
the France of republican ideals, of the federations, of true 
fraternity, was the Girondin France. The policy of the 
Committees of the Commune, of the Mountain, was a return 
to mediaeval and barbaric methods of government. It was 
not because the Girondins were conservative but because 
they were true radicals that they opposed the measures of 
the popular party. The counter-revolution, a term first 
employed by Buzot, and afterwards by Quinet — the nega- 
tion of the principles of the Revolution — began after the 
rise of the Commune and the massacres of September. 
Danton, Robespierre, the partisans of violence, were reac- 
tionaries. The real men of progress were the Girondins. 
The theory of that Republic was supplied by the Gironde. 
Condorcet formulated the philosophy of the Revolution. 

At the present moment it is not dijfficult to deal impar- 
tially with the group of brilliant men which formed the 
Gironde. They are not as popular now as they were with 
Sainte Beuve and the republicans of the last century. Their 
political rivals are again in the ascendant, and the heroes 
of the Mountain are those of the hour. For there are 
fashions in writing history as well as in making hats, and 
each opinion has its day. Neither the author nor the mil- 
liner is a freeman. The most original thinker is influenced 
by the climate of opinion, and the bias not only of the his- 
torian but of his public is visible in his work. We are con- 
stantly reminded that the history of the Revolution is still 
the closed lists of literary and political antagonists. No 
series of events has been viewed more diversely, no period 
has been subject to greater successive fluctuations, as well 
as contemporary differences, of opinion. A typical example 
of this mutability is afforded by the lives of Danton's family. 



APPENDIX V 375 

After his death his second wife returned to her father, re- 
sumed her maiden name, and soon afterwards remarried. 
During the course of a long life she never spoke of her first 
husband. Danton's two sons were brought up by their 
mother's family. For many years after they reached man- 
hood they lived alone in their father's house at Arcis-sur- 
Aube. The blood of September, the blood that had stifled 
their mother, ran between them and the villagers. "Que 
mon nom soit fletri!" Danton cried in one of his oratorical 
flights, forgetful of the innocent he condemned to obloquy 
and isolation. Their loneliness was deeply felt by the 
younger of the sons, Georges Danton, who, born during the 
storms of 1792, was especially nervous and susceptible. The 
shy, silent men were pitied and perhaps respected by their 
townsfolk, but their name still struck terror. 

In 1848, the year of revolutions, came a change of things, 
and the people of Arcis, hearing the praises of their illus- 
trious fellow citizen from all quarters, decided to make tardy 
amends to his sons. It was resolved by the municipal coun- 
cil that the first tree of liberty raised to commemorate the 
new-born republic should be a poplar from the Dantons' 
garden. A delegation accompanied by the village band 
and the usual quantity of unoccupied citizens, who add 
numbers if not dignity to such manifestations, arrived at 
the silent house. The Dantons, in answer to their summons, 
appeared at the door; the municipal council saluted them, 
the crowd hurrahed, music sounded, all the voices burst into 
the "Marseillaise," and Georges Danton fell down senseless 
at their feet; he died two months later. Sympathy and 
recognition had come too late. 

Danton's statue is now the pride of Arcis; for not skies 
but souls change, and the Dantons' is the story of many 
families of the Revolution. At first, when the hurricane 
of the Terror died away, the survivors buried their dead 
and rebuilt their ruined homes in a stunned silence. Those 
who had sown the storm and reaped the whirlwind were 
very quiet. The bravest of their sons had no desire to wake 
the dead from their bloody sleep. They made themselves 
small, they changed their names, sometimes their habitat. 
The armies of the Empire were filled with the children of 
the Revolution. Those who once had made it glorious or 



376 APPENDIX V 

infamous mutely agreed to ignore the past; they despaired 
of the Republic. Such memoirs as were written were the 
apologies or recantations of those who had been fair-weather 
friends of the Revolution, as they were later partisans of 
Napoleon, or adherents of the Bourbons. Across the fron- 
tier, or in tiny hamlet, or obscure Paris street, the old con- 
ventionnels remained dumb and almost forgotten. 

This cowed silence was broken by a woman's voice. In 
her Considerations sur la Revolution, Madame de Stael 
separated its principles and ideals from the crimes of the 
Terror, and people began to perceive what had long been 
obscured by a bloody mist. First to emerge from this sinister 
cloud were the Girondins, ^'ces belles figures humaines," the 
heroes of Lamartine's historical romance. The liberal, were 
he Frenchman or foreigner, could understand the attitude 
and admire the aim of the Girondin whose desire to save 
the King, punish the assassins of September, and resist the 
tyranny of a minority were his undoing, while his passionate 
loyalty to his ideal republic, and the accusation of federalism 
did not lessen the sympathies of the American democrat. 

With the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 feeling changed 
more radically. "The Men of '93 were giants," cried Victor 
Hugo's Marius to his shocked Royalist grandfather, and he 
was the spokesman of enthusiastic youth. The sanguinary 
despotism of the Second Empire inflamed this ardor. After 
its shameful fall, after the invasion of France and the shrink- 
age of her boundaries, Frenchmen turned from their present 
humiliation to memories of a patria triumphant over a coali- 
tion of kings. Out of these memories grew gratitude to "the 
organizers of victory," Carnot, Cambon, Merlin de Thion- 
ville, Jean Bon Saint Andre, and Danton. Finally Robes- 
pierre and Saint Just were rehabilitated, and Socialism 
welcomed a forerunner in Marat. The workers and ad- 
ministrators, the men of action who had long been confused 
with the mere brawlers and butchers, have come to their 
own again, sometimes to more than their due, for the pendu- 
lum is swinging very far Terrorward, and there were few 
better Jacobins in '93 than many French writers are to-day. 
Danton's statue is a familiar Parisian landmark, Marat's 
image is soon to be set up, and the envious shade of Robes- 
pierre need not despair of future honors. Naturally enough, 



APPENDIX V 377 

there is a reaction in public opinion against this rather un- 
discriminating glorification of Terrorists. Unfortunately, 
it is as often muscadin as republican, and consequently 
tainted with snobbishness, but ability and talent and, what 
is quite as effective, public funds and official patronage are 
on the side of the Sansculottes. Between the radical and 
the reactionary the Gironde fares ill; at present the spot- 
light is on the Mountain; its old rival is in momentary 
eclipse. The Girondins have had their season; they must 
wait for another turn of the wheel to come up again into 
the sunshine of popularity. 

But old fashions are always returning, modes of thought 
as well as the vesture of thought. We shall go back to the 
bonnets of the thirties and the heroes of Vatel. There are 
already portents of a revulsion of public opinion. The moral 
sense and the common sense of the community are alike 
rebellious against laudations of inhuman theorists and fe- 
rocious demagogues. Men grow as tired of hearing Robes- 
pierre praised as Barere did of hearing Roland called the 
Just; perhaps even more so, as paradoxes are more weari- 
some than platitudes. En attendant, the Girondins, I repeat, 
in spite of such winning and elevated studies of them as 
Auguste Rey's Le Naturaliste Bosc, and Camille Perroud's 
Brissot, are in the shade. 



APPENDIX VI 
THE METHODS OF THE MOUNTAIN 

The Societes Populaires were an idea of Lanthenas, who 
founded thirty of them in Lyons alone. It was M. Roland's 
idea (and a fatal one for his wife) to create a bureau of special 
correspondence with these societies, to send them free printed 
matter to instruct or interest them, and to pay orators to 
address them. The plan once elaborated, it was necessary 
to have it accepted by the Assembly and to obtain the funds 
such a plan required. Roland had refused to sanction it 
during his first ministry, but after the loth of August it was 
adopted. This was in the eyes of the Mountain Madame 
Roland's crime against the Republic. The methods of the 
Mountain were different and vastly more effective. To 
appeal to the minds of a constituency is a slow and uncertain 
process; to appeal to its appetite is a swift and practical one. 

It was a crime for Roland to spend thirty-six thousand 
francs on a series of brochures, a republican propaganda of 
political tracts sent into the country, explaining the nature 
of liberty, the machinery of government, etc. It was meri- 
torious of Danton to spend three hundred thousand for the 
same avowed purpose. 

(See extract from Louvet's letter.) 

In order to excuse the crimes of the prominent Terrorists, 
their patriotism, their austere enthusiasm, the purity and 
probity of their private life have been extolled. They were 
Spartan heroes sending, with fortitude recalling that of 
Brutus, hecatombs of victims to be sacrificed on the altar. 
They shed innocent blood because they sincerely believed 
that the safety of the country demanded holocausts. Solemn 
and devout, they killed and prosecuted with the detachment 
of a Grand Inquisitor. Their ruthlessness was religious, 
impersonal, exercised in the service of an idea; though fero- 
cious, they were virtuous, exalted, fanatical, single-minded. 

378 



APPENDIX VI 379 

Their disinterestedness was supposed to be proved by their 
irreproachable conduct in their private relations. Was it 
irreproachable ? The giants of '93, looming through a red 
mist, are formidable, grandiose, like the Molochs of antiq- 
uit}^ rising dimly terrible behind the smoke of streaming 
altars and blurring clouds of censers. But a closer inspection 
attenuates this impression. The written records silence the 
eloquence that has celebrated the disinterestedness of the 
Revolutionary leaders. How dead falls the thunderbolt of 
oratory when it strikes a worn bit of paper, a stamped and 
dated entry in some dusty public record. Saint-Just, Herault 
de Sechelles, Jullien de Paris — these colossi are but vulgar 
politicians, hungering for rule or money, each preoccupied 
with personal aims, each with his following of needy and 
complaisant friends. Theirs are the methods of political 
rings: payment of writers, bullying, bribing, gross flattery 
of ignorance, exaltation of the average man over the excep- 
tional man, shameless distribution of privileges and places. 
Here are all the modern tricks, all the open favor shown the 
cafe or the brasserie where "pure" patriots congregate. 

The men of '93 would have been merely vulgar politicians 
had not their crimes been so great. A certain kind of base- 
ness seems to be the product of a new-born democracy — seems 
only, for these knights of industry have generally learned 
their trade under an older regime, like the Abbe d'Espagnac, 
an old factotum of Calonne or Pereyra, the soi-disant tobac- 
conist, who traflicked in suspicious peculations, as well as 
Proly, who was a spy, the two Jews Frey, whose sister married 
Chabot, and Dietrichsen, Gusman, and the Baron de Batz. 
This vermin infested the passages of the Assembly. Thanks 
to the complicity of the needy deputies and their early 
knowledge of public measures, which they owed to friends 
in the Comite du Salut Public, they made fortunes out of 
a starving France, while Frenchmen, already unwilling vic- 
tims of arbitrary laws and suffering general poverty, opened 
the march of the coming Terror by the insouciant destruction 
of commerce and industry, while the Demos issued a new 
revocation of the Edict of Nantes and again attacked the 
skilled artisan and the industrial arts. 

The Mountain declared its belief in justice, too, but decided 
to put ofF the practice of it until a more opportune time. The 



38o APPENDIX VI 

Gironde, on the contrary, believed that if justice and right 
are indeed sacred things, the very time to put them to the 
proof is during storm and stress. The one article of faith 
held in common by the Girondins, whatever their beliefs or 
unbeliefs in other things celestial, was an impassioned con- 
viction of the existence of a divine justice. Where.? In their 
own hearts and in those of their fellow men ? Without 
them as a reality ? Within them as a great desire ? Who 
knew? Who could locate this necessity of the soul .'' Justice 
was the new divinity of men, bent on redressing the wrongs 
of a thousand years; justice — not grace — the appanage of 
kings, to be dispensed by favor. 



APPENDIX VII 
THE SALON OF MADAME ROLAND 

This was a society of partisans composed of grave folk 
occupied with serious matters, mostly Girondins. Its tone 
was thoughtful but not solemn. The lightness of hand which 
the French display in all social discussion, even of the pro- 
foundest subjects, saved it from pedantry, and the presence 
of women, even such serious-minded women as the jemmes 
politiques, imposed on it a certain good humor. The dinners 
followed by discussions (during which the project for the 
Societes Populaires of Lanthenas was perfected) took place 
on Mondays and Thursdays. Soon, however, the popular 
government found these simple dinners, these reunions of 
friends and colleagues, a menace to the liberties of the people. 
A supper was necessarily, according to Pere Duchesne, a 
meeting of conspirators. The guest of yesterday denounces 
his hostess. Danton, who a few months before "venait me de- 
manderla soupe presque tous les jours " sends Madame Roland 
to the scaffold. Camille Desmoulins thinks the Rolands' re- 
ceptions "suspect" only a short time before his own wife's 
were denounced by the spies of Robespierre, whom he had 
invited to them. Madame Roland knew all her enemies 
well; they had sat at her table, they had listened with 
deep attention to her words, in order to use them next day 
in the . . . 

By a wide distribution of literature, she and her party 
endeavored to educate the nation in liberty and the sane 
exercise of its newly acquired rights. Speakers and lecturers 
were sent out from headquarters at the ministry all over 
France. Dinners and social reunions kept the chiefs of the 
party together, where woman's tact and the amenities of the 
drawing-room healed the slight breaches and diminished fric- 
tion, and where measures were discussed and policies adopted. 

381 



382 APPENDIX VII 

She was a political woman who owed her position and in- 
fluence to her own industry and talent, almost the unique 
"self-made" woman in the political world. To the duties 
of a mother and housewife, at a time when housekeeping in- 
cluded all the domestic industries, she added the achieve- 
ments of an honorable and able man — the study of economic 
conditions, close personal contact with the most oppressed 
class of the people, and the practical experience of the farmer. 
Her idealism was qualified by her acceptance of the reality 
of life, and her humdrum tasks were sweetened by her way of 
performing them. Her methods were always direct. Small 
wonder that she embodied for the brilliant men of her fol- 
lowing the republican idea in its purest form; amid tergi- 
versations she never wavered; in a world where people 
clamored for their rights, and especially for the right to 
happiness, she sacrificed hers and that of the man she loved 
to duty. She made no specious distinctions between public 
and private morality, and would have the republic served 
with clean hands. The flights of her enthusiasm were bal- 
lasted with good sense. . . . 

All the legitimate means of shaping public opinion, of 
securing the triumph of ideas, were, if not discovered, de- 
veloped and amplified by Madame Roland. It was not only 
for her political opinions that she was put to death, it was 
for the propaganda of her opinions. Women had often pos- 
sessed political power, they had won it by base means, they 
had inherited it or usurped it. Madame Roland earned it. 
It is this honesty of means and nobility of purpose that make 
the study of her methods worth while; that invest it with 
permanent value for the busy modern student of politics or 
history. Madame Roland points a modern moral; she is of 
our own time; her spirit lives to-day. Her contemporaries, 
the queens and courtesans who spent the money and shed 
the blood of the people, the Pompadours and Du Barrys, 
the Antoinettes and Theresias, seem very far away. They 
belong to the old order, their language is not ours, their 
theories of life are outworn. The daughter of the people has 
a message for us, the citoyenne of the first French Republic 
is one with us. Her credo, her illusions, her errors are ours. 



R D - 8 9. 



APPENDIX VII 383 

There is as much, perhaps more, to be learned from her mis- 
takes as from her successes. Her partisanship, her scorn 
of compromises, her intense party feeling, her momentary 
and bitterly repented sanction of violence color but do not 
darken her radiant memory. 



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